Eight individuals and four life insurance companies have been named as winners of the Australasian Life Underwriting and Claims Association’s Annual Life Insurance Excellence Awards, now in its 6th year.
The 2023 ALUCA Life Insurance Excellence Awards Winners are:
- ALUCA Life Membership Award: Carly Van Den Akker – Swiss Re and John O’Leary – TAL Australia
- Life Insurance Excellence Leadership Award: Mitali Waghmare – AIA Australia
- Life Insurance Excellence Professional Award: Alex Kelly – MLC Life Insurance
- Life Insurance Excellence Rehabilitation Award: June Khaw – Hannover Re
- Life Insurance Excellence Rising Star Award: Kieran Seenan – MLC Life Insurance
- Life Insurance Excellence David Mico Education Award: Rebekah Raftopoulos – Workcom
- Life Insurance Excellence Underwriting Team of The Year Award: TAL Underwriting Risk & Strategy Team – TAL
- Life Insurance Excellence Claims Team of The Year Award: Retail Claims Fast Track (RCFT) Team – MLC Life Insurance
- Life Insurance Excellence Customer Service Team Award: QInsure Claims Team – Australian Retirement Trust
- Life Insurance Excellence Innovation Team Award: TAL Retirement – Group Longevity Insurance Team – TAL Australia
- Life Insurance Excellence Volunteer Hero Award: Shane Burdack – Swiss Re
ALUCA’s Chair, Joanne Faglioni, says the awards night “…once again highlighted the excellent work both individuals and companies are doing to benefit the communities we serve.”
She added that it was wonderful to celebrate talent in the life insurance industry “…who are achieving outstanding outcomes for our customers, financial advisors and clients.”
ALUCA’s CEO, Amanda McKernan, congratulated all winners and finalists and the “…highly deserving Life Award winners, Carly Van Den Akker from Swiss Re for her strong leadership as ALUCA’s former Rehab Chair, Board member for six years and current TPD Claims/Rehab Group Lead and to John O’Leary from TAL for his outstanding service to ALUCA as former Board Chair, CEO and driving several ALUCA portfolios for more than 10 years most notably education.”
McKernan says both have made an “…incredible contribution to ALUCA and the industry.”
MLC Life Insurance Winners
In a statement commenting on MLC Life Insurance’ three awards, Chief Claims Officer Andrew Beevors, says that MLC Life’s Retail Claims Fast Track was a successful innovation ”…the aim of which was to reduce processing times and the need for excessive documentation for straightforward claims … reducing the average claims process time to an incredible 3.8 days.”
He says the company’s teams are focused on “…delivering the best-in-claims experience and offering the most empathetic claims experience, because we know that making a claim is when our promise for life matters most to our customers, often coming at a challenging time.”
