Asteron Life, OnePath and AIA Australia have emerged as the inaugural winners of the AFA’s new Client Service Team Awards.
Presented as part of the 2012 PFL/AFA Life Company of the Year honours (see: TAL Takes Out 2012 Life Company of the Year Honour), the new awards recognise excellence in the pivotal roles played by the life insurance companies’ Underwriting & New Business, Claims and Business Services/BDM teams.
The winners and runners-up in each category are:
2012 Underwriting & New Business Team of the Year
Winner: Asteron Life
Finalists: BT Financial Group, TAL
2012 Claims Team of the Year
Winner: OnePath
Finalists: Zurich, AIA Australia
2012 Business Services & BDM Team of the Year
Winner: AIA Australia
Finalists: Asteron Life, Macquarie Life
The Awards are based on detailed and high quality research conducted by The Beddoes Institute, which obtained feedback drawn from the combined databases of the AFA and riskinfo, representing the largest independent pool of advisers in the industry.
Beddoes Institute Co-Founder, Dr Rebecca Sheils, explained that advisers only rated the life companies with whom they worked closely over the previous year.
Each of the Underwriting & New Business, Claims and Business Support/BDM teams were assessed across different aspects of service, where criteria included:
- Overall satisfaction
- Propensity to recommend
- Strength of relationship
- Speed and quality of the services delivered
- Accessibility
- Responsiveness
- Communication
- Innovation and thought leadership
- Software applications
- Adding value to the adviser’s business
Asteron Life was the clear winner in the Underwriting and New Business Team Award, while OnePath and AIA Australia’s wins in the Claims and BDM Team Awards had smaller winning margins, with the finalists finishing close behind.
Advisers and other stakeholders can click here to access a high level respondents report, released today by the Beddoes Institute, that provides more information about the Awards and some of the key outcomes across the three service team categories.
These awards will become a regular fixture within the PFL/AFA Life Company of the Year process, recognising those life company teams who advisers believe have delivered the best services to both themselves and their clients in the preceding year.
I would endore all of the above, especially Claims, but I would like to know who came last in each category
Well done to all involved. I can certainly vouch for the value of this Award program… on behalf of our clients and our business efficiencies, we must support the companies who keep raising the standards bar in terms of better outcomes for those who take and write the products. Great outcome for all!!
Well done to all involved, i must admit that i agree with Mark, claims is the highest benchmark for me.
You really wonder about the value of these awards when Beddoes state that advisers were ask to rate only those risk companies that they had dealings with in the year
The real question should be which ones DIDN’T the adviser use, and were those reasons related to poor adviser and client service. And there are a lot, even amongst those praised.
Overall, there is a hell of a lot of room for improvement
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