{"id":32617,"date":"2016-03-03T21:57:43","date_gmt":"2016-03-03T10:57:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/?p=32617"},"modified":"2016-03-03T21:57:43","modified_gmt":"2016-03-03T10:57:43","slug":"bt-financial-group-named-life-company-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/2016\/03\/03\/bt-financial-group-named-life-company-of-the-year\/","title":{"rendered":"BT Financial Group Named Life Company of the Year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>BT Financial Group (BTFG) has been named as the Platinum Winner of the Plan For Life (PFL) \/ Association of Financial Advisers (AFA) Life Company of the Year Awards.<!--more-->The awards, announced in Sydney last night at gala event, also saw BTFG as a finalist in the Overall Annuity Provider of the Year and Underwriting and New Business Team of the Year categories.<\/p>\n<p>The win for BTFG is its first in the history of the awards with 2014 winner TAL and 2013 winner CommInsure announced as runners up for the overall Platinum Award.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_29122\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-29122\" style=\"width: 150px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/files\/2015\/03\/Brad-Fox-2.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-29122\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-29122\" src=\"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/files\/2015\/03\/Brad-Fox-2.jpg\" alt=\"AFA CEO, Brad Fox\" width=\"150\" height=\"180\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-29122\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">AFA CEO, Brad Fox<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>AFA, Chief Executive, <strong>Brad Fox<\/strong> said the Platinum Award recognised the BT Financial Group as an insurer which exceeded expectations in terms of product quality, innovation and service.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAustralians are best served when financial advisers and life insurers are working constructively to provide personal life insurance solutions to consumers. The PFL\/AFA Life Company of the Year Awards aim to inspire competition and set higher benchmarks for insurers in satisfying the needs of both advisers and their clients.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Plan For Life, Marketing &amp; Product Development Manager, <strong>Rael Solomon<\/strong> said life insurance companies had been working on better way to engage with advisers and clients during the past year, pointing to initiatives around helping customers to improve their health and the associated benefits in the cost of insurance cover.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAn increasing number of companies have introduced new health programs as part of their offer to both new and existing clients. We expect that this trend towards health benefits will continue to be refined in future.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While the awards cover risk, investment bond and annuity and income stream products they also include service awards in the areas of underwriting, claims and business support services.<\/p>\n<p>These awards are determined exclusively from adviser feedback collected from an extensive joint AFA and riskinfo database, which is then analysed by the Beddoes Institute.<\/p>\n<p>Of these awards BTFG won the Claims Team of the Year award while Zurich won the Underwriting and New Business Team of the Year; and the Business Support Services and BDM Team of the Year awards<\/p>\n<p>In total, 13 awards were presented at the black tie event, including the client service team awards.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><strong>Product Awards<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Platinum Award \u2013 2015 Life Company of the Year<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Winner: BT Financial Group<\/li>\n<li>Finalists: TAL, CommInsure<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Service Quality Award<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Winner: Zurich<\/li>\n<li>Finalists: AIA, TAL<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Term\/TPD Award<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Winner: TAL \u2013 Life Insurance Plan<\/li>\n<li>Finalists: OnePath \u2013 OneCare Life Cover Plan, AIA \u2013 Life Cover Plan, AMP Elevate \u2013 Life Insurance Plan<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Trauma Award<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Winner: TAL \u2013 Critical Illness Premier Plan<\/li>\n<li>Finalists: OnePath \u2013 Trauma Premier Plan, AIA \u2013 Crisis Recovery Plan<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Income Protection Award<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Winner: BT Financial Group \u2013 Income Protection Plus Plan<\/li>\n<li>Finalists: OnePath \u2013 Income Secure Professional Plan, AMP Elevate \u2013 Income Insurance Premier Plan<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Risk Product Innovation Award<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Winner: MLC On Track<\/li>\n<li>Finalists: Zurich \u2013 Adviser Flip Chart, TAL Health Sense Fit for Life<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Investment Bond Award<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Winner: CommInsure<\/li>\n<li>Finalists: IOOF, Centuria<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Overall Annuity Provider of the Year<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Winner: Challenger<\/li>\n<li>Finalists: CommInsure, BT Financial Group<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Long Term Income Stream Award<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Winner: Challenger<\/li>\n<li>Finalists: CommInsure<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Annuity &amp; Income Stream Innovation Award<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Winner: Challenger \u2013 Aged Care Planning Course UNSW Business School<\/li>\n<li>Finalists: CommInsure \u2013 Enhanced Annuity Quoting and On Line Application System<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><strong>Client Service Team Awards<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Underwriting and New Business Team of the Year<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Winner: Zurich<\/li>\n<li>Finalists: BT Financial Group, AIA<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Claims Team of the Year<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Winner: BT Financial Group<\/li>\n<li>Finalists: AIA, Zurich<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Business Support Services and BDM Team of the Year<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Winner: \u00a0Zurich<\/li>\n<li>Finalists: BT Financial Group, AIA<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Previous Platinum winners of this Award have been:<\/p>\n<p>2015: BT Financial Group<\/p>\n<p>2014: TAL<\/p>\n<p>2013: CommInsure<\/p>\n<p>2012: TAL<\/p>\n<p>2011: TAL<\/p>\n<p>2010: TOWER\/CommInsure (Joint winners)<\/p>\n<p>2009: CommInsure<\/p>\n<p>2008: Asteron\/Aviva (Joint winners)<\/p>\n<p>2007: CommInsure<\/p>\n<p>2006: AXA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BT Financial Group (BTFG) has been named as the Platinum Winner of the Plan For Life (PFL) \/ Association of Financial Advisers (AFA) Life Company of the Year Awards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[259,48,4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-32617","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking","7":"category-company-news","8":"category-products"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32617","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\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32617\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}