NSW UPDATE

From Nathan Leonard

What’s happening at NEOS?

NEOS has seen a surge of business to kick off the new year and looking at IRESS recommendations, we’re sitting at number one in ACT and number two in NSW. We’ll look to have a few product updates in the second quarter of 2023 to ensure we maintain top quartile. We’re very excited to be working on the launch of the THIRD product on the NEOS Life Platform (watch out for important updates).

What’s happening in the market?

The QoAR keeps my optimism high, however I’m playing the wait and see game rather than jumping at shadows at this point. NEOS pushed for an increase in commissions to 90% upfront with a slight reduction in ongoing in our submission to Treasury; however, unfortunately this wasn’t recommended. We will continue to fight the good fight and push for what we believe in.

What advice trends am I seeing?

I was really hoping to see the market take a step in the right direction to kick off the year, however, recommendations are still trending down (-3% on this time last year), while premiums recommended seem to be up 19% in the month of January – including income protection premiums recommended which were down -30%.

There has been a bit of noise around five-year benefit periods; so what have your colleagues been doing? In NSW in 2021, five-year benefit periods made up 8.5% of recommendations. In 2022, this number increased to 13.63%. While there has been a slight uptick, to age 65 still dominates the market and made up 80.1% of recommendations in 2022. Want to know more about advice trends in Australia? Contact me to book a meeting.

Next holiday?

I mentioned towards the end of the 2022 that my fiancée Bianca and I were off to Bali in October (it was amazing, thank you for all your restaurant recommendations). We’re happy to say we’ve locked in a wedding destination in Uluwatu, Bali. We’ll be heading over again in June to finalise some wedding plans before we tie the knot at the end of September this year.

Thank you all for your support. If you ever have any feedback, please don’t hesitate to let me know. We’d love to hear from you.

QUALITY OF ADVICE REVIEW

The Quality of Advice Review (QoAR) commenced on 11 March last year following recommendations 2.3, 2.5 and 2.6 of the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry.

The QoAR Final Report was released on 8 February 2023, listing key recommendations and the associated implications for the life insurance industry.

Following the release, Michelle Levy sat down with Allens to discuss her recommendations behind key proposals and what she envisaged the proposals would do in practice. Clarifying how the changes are expected to impact both advisers and institutions under the new regime with the aim for all Australians to have access to high quality and affordable financial advice.

You can listen to the session here.

CONSUMER PRICE INDEX

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the 12-month period ending September 2022 was 7.3%. Therefore, for all renewals on or after 1 January 2023, NEOS Protection and Encompass Protection clients who have selected the Indexation Benefit will see their sums insured automatically increase by 7.3%.

We understand that your clients are feeling the effects of inflation across all their household bills, and we’re seeing increased numbers of customers seeking to reduce their sums insured.

To help us process these requests efficiently, we would appreciate it if you can inform us prior to the anniversary date if your client does not want the Indexation Benefit to apply, or if they want to make any other alternations to their cover date.

If you have any questions, reach out to your dedicated Business Development Manager.

THE NEOS LIFE PLATFORM

Last month, we hosted a webinar series on the NEOS Life Platform to showcase how we’re helping transform the way advisers manage their client’s insurance needs.

In a declining market where we’re seeing an increasing cost of advice and advisers leaving the industry, we’re driving change to find cost effective ways to provide you and your clients high quality life insurance.

Our aim is to reduce the number of systems, processes and personnel that advisers engage with. We understand having choice of product features, underwriting outcomes and pricing is a necessity to provide the best insurance solutions that meet your client’s needs. Giving advisers access to multiple products through a single technology platform with standardised application and administration processes, all with the support of a dedicated group of insurance professionals, helps advisers reduce costs in servicing their clients.

Both NEOS Protection and Encompass Protection are now available on the NEOS Life Platform, with another product in development. We’re passionate about trying to make risk advice easier, providing advisers with a range of high-quality products on a single log in, easy-to-use platform that advisers are familiar and comfortable with.

If you didn’t get a chance to join us, you can watch the NEOS Life Platform webinar here.

OUR SHORT-FORM WEBINARS ARE BACK!

Don’t miss our popular short-form webinars – helping you better understand what NEOS is all about, and how we can help you get the best for your clients. We also want to help with your CPD hours.

To do that, we’re bringing back our regular webinars from our growing library of accredited and non-accredited presentations.

Each topic will give you the opportunity to hear from a subject matter expert across both of our brands – NEOS Protection and Encompass Protection, and the ability to ask questions directly of them.

Keep an eye on our NEOS Protection and Encompass Protection events pages for new topics.

Next up, we have the Vivo Virtual Care for Encompass Protection webinar. Register now!

THE NEOS COLOURING COMPETITION IS BACK AGAIN!

We had great feedback on the NEOS colouring competition last year so we’re kicking it off again just in time for the school holidays. The competition will open on 1 April with winners announced on Monday, 8 May. The competition terms and conditions can be found here.

We hope that your kids (or yourselves) join in on the fun. If not to create a masterpiece, at the very least we hope it will give you some quiet time while we keep the kids busy.

How to enter

  1. Select one of our designs
  2. Colour in, have fun and submit your artwork

Best of luck to all and thanks for joining in on another round of fun!

NEOS CONTINUES TO GROW

We’re pleased to announce that we’ve hired eight new people across operations and sales – supporting our growth and strengthening our commitment to continually deliver the NEOS Experience we’re known for.

In operations, we welcomed three service consultants, a tele-interview consultant and a Digital Transformation Manager.

Aparna Sharma joined the NSW service team as a Service Consultant in January. She joins us from MLC and has seven years’ experience in financial services across boutique and large corporate firms.

Danielia Johannes joined the WA team as a Service Consultant in December 2022. Prior to joining NEOS, Danielia worked at AIA for 14 years, and brings with her a wealth of experience in life insurance administration.

Emma Gawley also joined the WA team in December 2022 as a Service Consultant. Emma joined the team from BT where she was a customer service specialist for three years.

Celine Mayo has joined the QLD tele-interview team. Joining us from Zurich, Celine has over 10 years’ experience in tele-communications and tele-interviewing.

Rin Xia joins in a newly created role as Digital Transformation Manager. With over 15 years’ experience in the IT industry, Rin will help advise, shape and support the delivery of technology led transformation programs to enhance the customer, adviser and user’s digital experience.

In our sales team, we had two business development managers and a business development consultant join us.

Marc Scalercio joins us as a Business Development Consultant looking after the WA panel of advisers alongside State Manager, Reon Botha. Prior to joining NEOS, Marc worked as an Aged Care Adviser for a private company and he also worked at iSelect for nine years.

Shehan Shakoor joined the sales team in Victoria as a Business Development Manager. His experience as a successful BDM spans over nine years, working at AIA.

Victor Li is the newest member of the Queensland sales team joining as a Business Development Consultant. He brings with him an in-depth knowledge of the advice process and relationship management skills with five years’ experience working as an adviser at Westpac and in a private practice.

We’re committed to providing the best experience – the NEOS Experience – for advisers and their clients and we’ll keep investing in our people and resources as needed to ensure this.

VIVO VIRTUAL CARE FOR ENCOMPASS PROTECTION

Vivo Virtual Care is available for Encompass Protection customers through their policy at no extra cost.

Vivo is a holistic health, wellness and recovery program that provides care and support through life’s journey. Accessed through the Vivo Virtual Care e-health portal, your clients can connect with over 50,000 medical specialists online.

With 17 tailored services provided virtually in areas such as fitness, nutrition, cancer care and recovery, Vivo was created with the belief that health and wellness support should be available all the time. Offering a range of benefits that are available 24/7 through the portal means, as long as your clients have internet access, they will continuously have the support they need at the tip of their fingers.

Want to learn more? Join us for our Vivo Care Webinar on Thursday 16 March by registering here.

LET US KNOW HOW WE'RE DOING

We want to ensure we’re providing solutions to make advisers’ lives easier. So, if there’s anything you feel we could be doing better or if you have any suggestions on how we can improve the NEOS Experience, please let us know.

While this edition of our newsletter has highlighted some of the great successes we’ve recently had, we’re not too proud to think that we can’t be better.

Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me as your State Manager or alternatively your BDM. We’d love to hear from you! And of course, positive feedback is also appreciated.

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