Asteron has announced a first to market initiative in eliminating mandatory Personal Medical Attendant’s Reports (PMARs) across its entire range of insurance products.
Eliminating mandatory PMARs is the highlight of a raft of underwriting-related enhancements announced by Asteron, all of which are intended to simplify the insurance application process for advisers and their clients.
As well as eliminating PMARs, Asteron has also eliminated specialist medical examinations and mandatory ECGs (resting and exercise), while other enhancements include:
- Introduction of new Exercise Echochardiogram requirement at $5,000,001 for Term/ TPD and for clients age 51 and over applying for over $1,000,000 Recovery
- No mandatory medical requirements for clients aged under 55 and applying for less than $1,000,001 Life/TPD
- No mandatory medical requirements for clients aged under 50 and applying for less than $750,001 Recovery
- No mandatory mammograms or PSA (a PSA blood test can be used to help diagnose prostate cancer) for clients under age 50
- Professional and white collar clients can now apply for $15K per month agreed value without providing financial evidence (Income Protection)
- Manual and heavy manual clients can now apply for $7.5K and $5K respectively per month agreed value without providing financial evidence (Income protection)
If a client has properly disclosed their medical history, we don’t see the need for a mandatory PMAR…
Commenting on the changes, Asteron’s Executive General Manager Jordan Hawke said: “If a client has properly disclosed their medical history, we don’t see the need for a mandatory PMAR from a doctor when applying for life insurance. This is at odds with the industry standard, which says that at a certain level of cover – regardless of the disclosure a PMAR is required in all instances”.
Mr Hawke also pointed to a review that found that when the insurer received mandatory underwriting requirements like PMARs, it was not gaining any further significant insights, “… because the client had already painted us a rich enough picture through the application process.”
Advisers can click here to access a full summary of Asteron’s underwriting enhancements, all of which took effect from 1 November 2010.
