Suncorp Life – cross‑selling to existing customers
Suncorp Life is a trans-Tasman life insurance specialist offering life insurance, superannuation and investment products through Independent Financial Advisers (IFAs) and direct to Suncorp's customers. Our key life insurance brand is Asteron Life and our superannuation product is Suncorp WealthSmart.
Suncorp Life's strategy is to be a life insurance specialist that leads the IFA market and builds a large direct distribution business. We support this strategy through initiatives in simplification, claims management and retention.
In the past year, we maximised the power of Suncorp Group's portfolio of brands and customer base while maintaining our competitive advantage in the IFA market. New business was up 21% overall – up 14.3% to $56 million in the adviser channel and up 43.8% to $23 million in the direct channel.
Individual Life Risk new business was up 12.3% to $91 million, reflecting the strong momentum in the IFA and direct distribution channels.
We have proven our ability to cross-sell to existing Suncorp Group customers through the launch of four new life insurance products in the AAMI, Apia, GIO and Suncorp brands. More than 10,000 Apia funeral plans have been sold, and 19% of those customers are new to the Suncorp Group.
Million Dollar Woman, our new Life brand, offers day-to-day living insurance – recognising the value of unpaid domestic work of stay-at-home parents.
Economic overlay
Suncorp Life experienced higher-than-expected policy lapse rates this year with a peak at the half year. We are lowering this rate through a strategy of directly contacting lapsing customers, which has saved $17 million of premium in Australia.
Worsening economic conditions have lengthened the time claimants take to return to work. Given the current outlook, we expect this to continue to be an issue until the end of 2011 at least, in line with industry trends.
Awards
We improved the service we provide to IFAs to strengthen Asteron Life's position as the number-one partner to dealer groups and the number-two partner to advisers. We won the Association of Financial Advisers 2011 and Smart Investor 2011 awards. This, in addition to Australian Financial Services Licensee tender wins, demonstrates that Asteron Life's market position as an independent specialist risk provider is strengthening.
To help simplify our operating model and enable us to focus on our core business, we sold our asset management businesses Tyndall and Guardian Trust New Zealand. In addition, we simplified our superannuation offer to employers with the introduction of EASE (the Employer Administration Super Exchange).
Next steps
By 2013 Suncorp Life has committed to doubling individual life insurance sales by building growth in the independent financial adviser and direct channels. In addition, to support our goal of double-digit in-force premium growth, our focus continues on customer retention, improving claims management and overall expense management. We are on track to achieve our goals.
