SA UPDATE

From John Griffiths

For those of you who don’t know me, I’ve been lucky to be part of the NEOS team for over four years now and have seen the business grow from a team of 20 when I joined, to a team of over 100! Our goal has been to make your life easier and the feedback I receive all the time is that we truly are delivering on this.

Last month, we held a great session with advisers and introduced them to members of the NEOS team including Harry Georges (Head of Sales), Chris Quinn (State Underwriting Manager) and Kirshan Reddy (Chief Actuary). Thanks to those who came along and if you missed it, we plan to run more informative and enjoyable workshops moving forward so please keep an eye out for updates that I’ll send out.

On a personal note, my wife Melanie and I were excited to send off our son Mitchell to his year 12 school formal. It was great to see him all dressed up with a smile on his face that he could not lose!

Both Mitchell and our other son Kai love their cricket, so our weekends are spent on the sidelines supporting the boys and their teams.

Melanie also works at NEOS as a Tele-Interview consultant, so we are truly part of the NEOS family!

Finally, I’d like to thank you for the support throughout 2022, and I hope 2023 is your best year yet. It’s been great to get to speak with and meet so many advisers over the last few months. I’ll continue to be in touch to see how we can keep making life easier for you and delivering the NEOS Experience we’re known for. Please reach out to me with any questions or assistance I can provide.

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.

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

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

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

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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