TAL winner of Life Company of the Year Awards 2014

TAL has won the Plan For Life / AFA Life Company of the Year 2014 overall Platinum Award. Award winners were announced at a black-tie premier event held at the Westin Hotel in Sydney on Wednesday 11th March 2015, recognising Life Insurance Company excellence in the provision of products and service to financial advisers.

Zurich received the Service Quality Award covering New Business/Underwriting Services, Claims Services and Business Support Services. In the Product Award categories, AMP Elevate received the Term Life/TPD Award, TAL received the Trauma/Critical Illness Award and OnePath received the Income Protection Award.

The Risk Product Innovation Award was given to BT Financial Group for Key Person Income Insurance.

CommInsure received the Investment Bond of the Year Award.

Challenger received several awards in the Annuities category including Annuity Provider of the Year Award, Long Term Income Stream Award. Challenger also received the Annuity & Income Stream Innovation Award for its Annuities on Platforms Integration.

Rael Solomon, Manager Marketing and Product Development at Plan for Life said: “2014 was a year in which the Life Industry continued to monitor claims and adjust premiums accordingly. Growth in Individual sales was at the lower end of the scale, although in terms of inflow, the market still grew substantially. There were a number of interesting innovations in product development and underwriting, designed to improve the sustainability of products. This is a pleasing trend as it will ultimately lead to wider range of options offered to consumers.”

Simon Solomon, Actuary said, “Annuities, which form a key pillar of both the Insurance and Retirement Markets, have soared past the $2.4 billion annual sales mark and look set to continue to grow strongly in future years. Whilst RCV Annuities still make up a very large component of the market, it’s notable that Lifetime annuities now comprise over 25% of total sales. The introduction of annuities onto platforms in the last few years, is another development which is likely to make a major contribution to sales growth.”