{"id":6056,"date":"2010-05-03T11:22:29","date_gmt":"2010-05-03T00:22:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/?p=6056"},"modified":"2020-02-06T08:10:06","modified_gmt":"2020-02-05T21:10:06","slug":"tower-news-updates-product-closure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/2010\/05\/03\/tower-news-updates-product-closure\/","title":{"rendered":"TOWER News &#8211; Updates, Product Closure"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>TOWER Australia has released a series of product and underwriting initiatives in its\u00a0recent <a href=\"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/resource-centre\/product-disclosure-statements\/tower-product-disclosure-statements-current\/tower-accelerated-protection-pds-280410\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Accelerated Protection PDS<\/a> update, effective from 28 April 2010.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->The insurer advises that\u00a0the product and\u00a0underwriting enhancements\u00a0were made as a direct result of feedback it has received from advisers since the launch of its new Accelerated Protection platform in August last year.<\/p>\n<p>Key\u00a0enhancements include:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Income Protection &amp; Business Expenses<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The &#8216;duties&#8217; clause in TOWER&#8217;s Income Protection Standard product has been redefined as &#8216;&#8230; one income producing duty&#8217;, replacing &#8216;&#8230; 80% reduction in income producing duties&#8217; (also applies to the Total Disability definition in the Business Expenses contract)<\/li>\n<li>Capability clause (ability to work) amended to make it clear it is not used to reduce the partial disability benefit paid<\/li>\n<li>New Child&#8217;s Critical Illness Benefit\u00a0(Premier product) &#8211; if the client has a child that suffers a listed critical illness event, an additional lump sum will be paid (3 x benefit, up to $20,000)<\/li>\n<li>The Scheduled Injury Benefit is now a built-in benefit in both the Standard and Premier contracts (previously only Premier)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Lump Sum Products<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Premium Freeze Benefit &#8211; reduction of the minimum reduced to 30 from which the benefit can be activated (previously 45)<\/li>\n<li>Business Insurance Option &#8211; the forward underwriting option will cover the full sum insured for sickness and injury (previously an &#8216;accident only&#8217; restriction applied)<\/li>\n<li>Advanced Payment Benefit &#8211; automatic amount payable has increased to 10% of the sum insured, up to $25,000 (previous cap was $10,000)<\/li>\n<li>Improved Critical Illness definitions for Blindness, Carcinoma in Situ and Cancer<\/li>\n<li>Loss of one single limb now provides a full benefit (this was only a partial payment under Premier Critical Illness, but is now a full payment under both Standard and Premier)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>All product changes will apply with no increase in premiums.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Underwriting<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>23 changes made to the TOWER occupation list include description updates, new occupations and some rating changes. Refer to TOWER&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/resource-centre\/adviser-guides\/tower\/tower-accelerated-protection-adviser-guide-280410\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Accelerated Protection Adviser Guide<\/a> for details of these changes.<\/li>\n<li>Hazardous duties question &#8211; the phrase &#8220;lift or move objects weighing more than 15kg&#8221;, has been removed.\u00a0 This is intended to limit unnecessary referrals to underwriting ensuring a faster application process.<\/li>\n<li>&#8216;Other medication and medical tests&#8217; question has been split into two new questions that refer to:\n<ul>\n<li>medication taken in the previous two years<\/li>\n<li>medical tests conducted at any time in the past &#8211; including medical tests that may have been conducted longer than two years ago<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Product Closure<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In order to simplify its market offering, TOWER is closing its TOWER Protection Policy to new business on 30 June 2010.\u00a0 The company&#8217;s intention is to focus on its &#8216;flagship&#8217; product, Accelerated Protection.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>TOWER Australia has released a series of product and underwriting initiatives in its\u00a0recent Accelerated Protection PDS update, effective from 28 April 2010.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,230],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-6056","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-products","7":"category-underwriting"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6056","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=6056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6056\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}