{"id":26145,"date":"2014-05-08T09:35:39","date_gmt":"2014-05-07T23:35:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/?p=26145"},"modified":"2024-05-08T11:20:34","modified_gmt":"2024-05-08T01:20:34","slug":"zurich-opts-out-of-group-insurance-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/2014\/05\/08\/zurich-opts-out-of-group-insurance-market\/","title":{"rendered":"Zurich Opts Out of Group Insurance Market"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em;\">The challenging conditions currently being experienced within Australia\u2019s group life market have led Zurich to announce it will withdraw from the sector.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_26149\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-26149\" style=\"width: 150px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/files\/2014\/05\/Colin-Morgan-2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-26149\" src=\"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/files\/2014\/05\/Colin-Morgan-2.jpg\" alt=\"Colin Morgan\" width=\"150\" height=\"180\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-26149\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Colin Morgan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The insurer said the adverse claims experience reported by many large funds, and the flow-on effect this has had on premiums, reinsurance rates and reserving requirements, meant it was no longer possible for smaller players to offer a competitive proposition in the group market.<\/p>\n<p>Zurich said it would close its book to new mandates immediately, but would continue to provide cover and support to existing clients as part of a phased withdrawal.<\/p>\n<p>Announcing the decision, Zurich\u2019s CEO of Australian Life and Investments, <strong>Colin Morgan<\/strong>, said the landscape of the group life market had changed significantly since Zurich\u2019s entry in 2008.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The ongoing challenges have reinforced the need for scale in this highly specialised segment<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\u201cThe ongoing challenges have reinforced the need for scale in this highly specialised segment, and ultimately we felt we couldn\u2019t participate in the local group life market in a way that was sustainable, either for Zurich or our customers,\u201d said Mr Morgan.<\/p>\n<p>However, Mr Morgan noted that the decision was based on the commercial outlook for a specialised segment, representing a very small part of Zurich\u2019s Australian business, and would not affect other Zurich offerings in the market.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Zurich remains very much committed to its Australian Life &amp; Investments and General Insurance businesses&#8221;, he said, adding that Zurich\u2019s retail life business continued to grow rapidly, reflecting the underlying health of the Australian market.<\/p>\n<p>Zurich advised that the staffing impact of its decision to exit the group market was limited, with only two roles immediately affected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The challenging conditions currently being experienced within Australia\u2019s group life market have led Zurich to announce it will withdraw from the sector.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,3,4,5622],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-company-news","category-general","category-products","category-superannuation","headers-new"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26145\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}