Life insurer TAL has created a new executive role which will specifically focus on innovation.
The company has appointed start-up venture entrepreneur Tim Thorne as chief innovation and disruption officer. He will be migrating from the UK to take up the position in early November.
Thorne previously worked as group innovation director for the Royal Bank of Scotland where he developed products like mobile banking, teenage banking and card-less ATM withdrawals.
He also co-founded a specialist growth and innovation consultancy called Edengene.
"I am very excited to join TAL in bringing to customers different solutions to meet their financial protection needs," Thorne said.
"With life under-insurance in Australia at an incredible $10.6 trillion, we have a lot of work to do to close the gap and ensure people are adequately covered should they not be able to work again."
Thorne was also innovation director at Cancer Research UK where he created the most successful telethon for cancer research on UK commercial television.
TAL Group CEO Jim Minto said the role of chief innovation and disruption officer involved considering ideas and innovations to fulfil customer demands.
