The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) recently updated its guidelines on how to reduce health risks brought on from drinking alcohol. At 6,000 deaths per year* from alcohol-attributed diseases, it’s a significant problem for Australia. But, as Professor Anne Kelso, NHMRC CEO notes, “We’re not telling Australians how much to drink” – and nor is Integrity. Like most public health initiatives, the guidelines are formulated using population-based statistics and are framed around reducing risks for an otherwise healthy average person.

When you are being underwritten for life insurance, the underwriter groups you with all the other lives that are similar to you. That means underwriting outcomes for alcohol consumption are also based on relative risk. Your individual health risk (long and short term) in respect to alcohol consumption needs to be considered taking all your own health factors into consideration.

But, just like the public health initiatives, we’re not making any moral judgement on your alcohol consumption. Nor do we increase your premiums if, for example, your consumption is more than what the government medical officer recommends. So when the guidelines are officially released in their entirety, premiums won’t be increased for drinkers…assuming what’s recommended in the guidelines is less (not more) alcohol. 

In addition to your relative risk compared to the group, the underwriter also considers your health history – what has happened – or not happened – as a result of your alcohol consumption habits and decides if this is generally the experience of the rest of the insured pool like you. That’s how underwriting risk appetite is formulated (what is the risk, does it apply equally to everyone, and if not, what extra premium should those outside the pool pay?)

The underwriter will take your disclosures about how much you drink, and provided that it’s within the underwriting guidelines, will usually just accept your cover.

So, cheers! And remember, everything carries risk, not just habits like drinking alcohol – there is plenty of advice as to what low risk can be and recommendations as to how you minimise health issues. Don’t forget the definition of what ‘risk’ means is interpreted differently for different purposes.

http://ndri.curtin.edu.au/news-events/ndri-news/media-release-alcohol-causes-nearly-6,000-australi

Volunteering is an Australian tradition. Helping out your mates and being there for each other, especially in times of crisis, is part of our culture and way of life. Like most Australians I have been following the bushfires and have witnessed incredible bravery and sacrifice from volunteers across the country. 

They respond because they care about their communities. My own personal experience was, a giant pine tree crashing into my home causing severe damage. This was the result of a freak storm just before Christmas, the first responders were my local State Emergency Services brigade. Calm, cheerful and reassuring, just great and capable people.

Volunteers come from all walks of life, you can be in a traditionally low-risk job by day and ‘after hours’ fighting fires, responding to storm damage, or helping flood affected communities. So how does this impact insurance, and are you covered if you undertake volunteering?

The role of the underwriter is to protect the pool of insured lives at his or her company. So, when deciding whether we should cover such risks, we consider:

• What is the exposure – how many volunteers of many persuasions (SES, RFS, CFA, Army reserve etc) are there in Australia compared to the population?
• And what about the time they spend in the more hazardous volunteer job compared to their usual job? This is a part time role – so we have butchers, bakers and candlestick makers in day jobs and volunteering is their ‘after hours’ role.
• What is the incidence? Of the many people who volunteer for a range of community service tasks – how many are unfortunately killed or injured in those roles compared to their ‘civilian’ job?
• And taking all that into consideration, would this incidence have a marked and abnormal effect on the pool of lives insured? That is, are we letting in lives who present a greatly increased risk compared to the average?

So, at Integrity, like a good many other life companies, we cover all our insured customers when they are acting as volunteers in any capacity. Whether you’re directly involved or providing support like food and resources to the front line you’re covered. If you’re not with Integrity Life, you should check that you are covered as there may be an exclusion. If any clients have any doubts and would like our reassurance, please direct them to this article, or we are happy to write to them and confirm their cover.

At the end of the day, our position is; with volunteering being so prevalent, it should be considered part of the experience of the pool of insureds and have no effect on the pool, so we insure our clients even when they’re volunteering.

Our Managing Director and CEO, Chris Powell, was recently at a dinner, sitting next to the head of a large dealer group. He was chatting to Chris about our Adviser Portal and our next biggest competitors’ portal. He had decided to do a timed test between the two. Same case, same data – portal against portal. One took 45 minutes, and one took 14. Chris relays that, at this point in the story, he was thinking confidently to himself “ours will be the quickest”. Of course, it was, and in this story, we have our first example of why good design matters. How much it matters, is about to exponentially increase.

Advisers have had a tough year in 2019. The combination of changes in commissions, exams, increases in fees from some dealer groups, the Royal Commission and bad press driving down trust (even for the good guys) it’s no wonder many are leaving the industry. For those who stay, they’re going to need a shift in focus and new ways of working to maintain the same levels of business. Operational efficiency is going to be part of the way that Advisers are able to do more with less. Focusing on margins will mean that all processes will be under the microscope. Enter, good design.

What is ‘design’ anyway?

When we talk about ‘design’ we’re not talking about how lovely our logo looks (although we certainly have our admirers having won both the Sydney and Melbourne Design Awards for brand) we’re talking about a process by which everything from forms, to buttons, and every little digital behavior is tested and optimized. Why? Because we have a simple goal in design. Make it as simple, easy, and quick to use as possible. 

Can design effect lives?

In our earlier anecdote, you can see how good design can save you time and money, but can it go further? If you’re in Australia, then you may be familiar with plan packaging for all tobacco products. We made history in 2012 as the first country in the world to introduce such a measure. To make sure we got it right, the Department of Health and Ageing hired market research company GfK Blue Moon to find the ugliest colour in the world. After seven studies involving 1,000 smokers, the researchers chose a particularly nauseating shade of brown known as Pantone 448C, or ‘opaque couché’. It was associated with death, tar and dirt – and now it’s been coupled with cigarettes, too. The measure is attributed to reducing the number of smokers by significant numbers. It’s not difficult then to see how poor design could have a detrimental impact on someone’s life if they fail to disclose critical information or believe they are covered for something they’re not – and it can all come down to design.

The final note.

This year, we were fortunate enough to win a Good Design Award – the only Life Insurance company to ever win one. It was awarded for our Adviser portal based on how easy and simple it was to navigate and use. Like us, the people at Good Design Australia have seen the power of good design first-hand. They believe that good design doesn’t just exist for aesthetic reasons, although they are important, it’s about solving human problems, driving innovation and ultimately making life better. And that’s why we’re in Life Insurance!