{"id":33168,"date":"2016-05-02T10:00:16","date_gmt":"2016-05-01T23:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/?p=33168"},"modified":"2016-05-03T04:57:56","modified_gmt":"2016-05-02T17:57:56","slug":"insurance-a-stable-performer-for-btfg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/2016\/05\/02\/insurance-a-stable-performer-for-btfg\/","title":{"rendered":"Insurance a Stable Performer for BTFG"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The life insurance arm of BT Financial Group has posted stable cash earnings of $88 million for the half year to March 2016 with inforce premiums growing by 4% to $927 million.<!--more--><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_26904\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-26904\" style=\"width: 150px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/files\/2014\/07\/Brad-Cooper.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-26904\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-26904\" src=\"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/files\/2014\/07\/Brad-Cooper.jpg\" alt=\"BTFG's Brad Cooper\" width=\"150\" height=\"180\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-26904\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">BTFG&#8217;s Brad Cooper<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>BTFG offers life insurance via Westpac Life Insurance and St George Life Insurance and while inforce premiums across the two businesses was higher than for the half year to September 2015 new business fell by around $30 million, while lapse rates reminded steady around $58 million in March, compared to $57 million in September.<\/p>\n<p>In its statement of results to the Australian Stock Exchange, Westpac \u2013 owner of BTFG \u2013 said the drop in new sales were due to a decline in advice sales and seasonal factors<\/p>\n<p>BTFG, Chief Executive, <strong>Brad Cooper<\/strong> said despite the level performance BTFG paid more than $275 million in life insurance claims in 2015<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLife insurance remains a topic of interest and I am incredibly proud of our genuine \u2018customer first\u2019 culture which has allowed us to standout in the market.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were the first retail insurer to extend the life expectancy time provision for terminal illness conditions, from 12 months to 24 months and last year we were the only company awarded the top \u2018A*\u2019 rating from The Risk Store, reflecting our excellence in claims processes and customer service,\u201d Cooper said.<\/p>\n<p>Collectively, BTFG contributed $452 million of cash earnings to the total Westpac Group result of $3.9 billion of cash earnings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The life insurance arm of BT Financial Group has posted stable cash earnings of $88 million for the half year to March 2016 with inforce premiums growing by 4% to $927 million.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-company-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33168","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=33168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33168\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}