Life Insurance Australia News

Sun, 19 August 2007
MBF To List On ASX
MBF Australia said it intends to demutualise and list on the Australian stock exchange in an attempt to grow and diversify its business. The health insurer said its plans have been endorsed by the MBF Council. It said a share market listing is likely in calendar 2008. The board believes that demutualising is in the best interests of policyholders, that it will maximise MBF's future growth potential and enhance its ability to compete in a rapidly changing environment," chairman John Conde said.

Sat, 22 September 2007
Mohl to leave AMP in good shape
AMP Limited has announced that its chief executive, Andrew Mohl, will be leaving the company later this year at the same time as reporting a 27 per cent increase in underlying profit to $534 million for the six months ended June 30, 2007. The company said that it had accelerated the succession planning process with a view to replacing Mohl. AMP said the 27 per cent increase in underlying profit had been driven by record retail net cash flows, strong growth in assets under management, further improvements in capital and cost efficiency and market leading investment performance.

Fri, 05 October 2007
Looming bushfire season prompts call for insurance review
People who live in bushfire prone areas of Gippsland, in south-east Victoria, are being urged to reassess their insurance policies before summer sets in.

The Insurance Council of Australia says people who live near national and state parks should check their insurance policies for home, contents and vehicles.

General manager Paul Jiles says people need to record a realistic replacement value for their personal effects.

"Go through and have a look at and place a realistic replacement value on the value of your assets both inside the home and outside the home," he said.

"Indeed a lot of the general insurers provide a lot of great tools and websites such as online calculators where you can plug in what you have in a particular room such as a lounge room and it can come up with an estimated value for you about how much it would cost you to actually replace that."

Sun, 21 October 2007
ING announces changes
Advisers and the general public may soon experience a shift in service at ING Australia, following an overhaul of the company’s customer services division.

In an attempt to streamline its service, the fund manager and life insurer has consolidated its customer service and IT areas.

The new division will comprise an adviser and customer contact centre, unit pricing, project management and IT services as well as some compliance, support and finance functions.



Mon, 07 January 2008
Ensuring financial security in the new year should be top priority
Alarming figures in a recent Citibank survey reveal that almost half of all Australians have no insurance and close to a third are worried about their financial future.

Citibank's sales and wealth management head, Cameron McLeod, said "Life is unpredictable. You never know what could happen to your job, home or possessions and the only way to protect yourself is to get an adequate level of insurance".



Sun, 25 May 2008
GE Money in trouble with ASIC
The GE Money Group has had conditions imposed on the Australian Financial Services Licence of two of its subsidiaries over the provision of insurance advice and has entered into an enforceable undertaking over debt collection practices.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) said it imposed the licence conditions on GE Money’s Hallmark General Insurance Company and Hallmark Life Insurance Company after those companies failed to comply with commitments given within an enforceable undertaking in 2006.

ASIC found parts of the insurance advice and sales business were often poorly managed and did not meet the legal obligation requiring that there be a reasonable basis for personal advice given to customers.

The regulator said it was specifically concerned that staff were selling insurance to customers whose needs had not been identified or understood.

ASIC said that given the Hallmark companies had not complied with a number of key undertakings given in 2006, it had decided the best way to protect consumers was to impose conditions on the licences of GE Money’s Hallmark companies.

It said these more stringent conditions replaced the 2006 enforceable undertaking.

ASIC said that separate to the additional licence conditions on the Hallmark companies, GE Money had entered into an enforceable undertaking to address ASIC’s concerns about debt collection practices in its consumer business.

SOURCE: Mike Taylor - Money Management

Tue, 04 November 2008
Accountants welcome SMSF guidance
The guidance note was issued by the Government’s Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (AUASB), which described the guidance note as “providing a road map to guide auditors through the application of AUASB standards and the complex requirements of the legislation and regulations governing the audits of SMSFs”.



Tue, 11 November 2008
Act now in self-defence
IF THERE'S one thing the current upheaval in world financial markets has taught us, it's that defensive strategies aimed at protecting your wealth are just as important as aggressive strategies geared towards growing it...

Yet I would venture that, despite the painful market lessons of the past year, you are still exposed to an unacceptable level of risk - underinsurance risk.



Tue, 18 November 2008
Hedge funds not defensive after all
A big difference between this year's bear market and earlier declines is that most investors who have their money invested in multi-sector balanced superannuation funds have received little protection from the traditional defensive asset class, fixed interest...

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