AFA names Life Company of the Year - 2020

TAL has secured the title of Overall Platinum Life Company of the Year, with AIA Australia, MLC Life Insurance and NEOS being the runners up.

AFA president Michael Nowak congratulated TAL on winning the accolade and paid tribute to all of the finalists for stepping up in an “extraordinarily difficult environment”.

“These companies have risen to meet the challenges presented by the current pandemic and continue to deliver superior products and services to financial advisers and their clients,” Mr Nowak said.

All of the categories, winners and finalists for the 2020 Life Company awards are as follows:

AFA partnered with Plan for Life, Riskinfo and Beddoes Institute for the Life Company of the Year awards, which aims to celebrate excellence in service, product and support delivered to advisers and their clients.

Rebecca Sheils, director of the Beddoes Institute (the company who’s adviser survey underpinned the three team-based awards) commented the firm’s research had indicated that new insurers have made “significant gains across underwriting and their BDM teams”.

“Underwriting performance across the industry overall dropped over the last 12 months. Likewise, claims performance across the industry overall also dropped,” Ms Sheils said.

“It was a challenging year for BDM teams in 2020 as reflected in slightly lower scores compared to 12 months ago. That said, the top performing insurers went above and beyond, delivering an exceptional standard of service and maintaining their strong and supportive adviser relationships under difficult circumstances.”

Rael Solomon, regional managing director of life insurance research provider Plan for Life, added, “Whilst 2020 was a difficult year for the life insurance market, life insurers have continued doing their best to support advisers through increased training efforts, maintained high levels of service for both advisers and customers and kept a high profile through advertising their products."