{"id":81917,"date":"2026-04-07T10:45:24","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T00:45:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/?p=81917"},"modified":"2026-04-09T09:31:38","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T23:31:38","slug":"adviser-demand-for-new-disability-products","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/2026\/04\/07\/adviser-demand-for-new-disability-products\/","title":{"rendered":"Adviser Demand for New Disability Products"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"polls-362\" class=\"wp-polls\">\n\t\t<div class=\"pollHeader\"><strong>Insurers should develop new product solutions which better cater to total disability conditions which are episodic in nature.<\/strong><\/div><div id=\"polls-362-ans\" class=\"wp-polls-ans\"><ul class=\"wp-polls-ul\">\n\t\t<li>Agree <small>(79%)<\/small><div class=\"pollbar\" style=\"width: 79%\" title=\"Agree (79% | 45 Votes)\"><\/div><\/li>\n\t\t<li>Disagree <small>(14%)<\/small><div class=\"pollbar\" style=\"width: 14%\" title=\"Disagree (14% | 8 Votes)\"><\/div><\/li>\n\t\t<li>Not sure <small>(7%)<\/small><div class=\"pollbar\" style=\"width: 7%\" title=\"Not sure (7% | 4 Votes)\"><\/div><\/li>\n\t\t<\/ul><div style=\"text-align: center\"><\/div><\/div>\n\t\t<input type=\"hidden\" id=\"poll_362_nonce\" name=\"wp-polls-nonce\" value=\"72d5b4dd99\" \/>\n<\/div>\n\n<p>There appears to be strong support among the adviser community for life insurers to find a way to deliver new product solutions catering to insured lives suffering total disability on an episodic basis.<\/p>\n<p>As we go to press, 82% of those voting in our latest poll support the poll statement around developing new product solutions, while the rest disagree (15%) or aren&#8217;t sure (3%). The poll itself is based around discussions which took place at the recent <a href=\"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/roundtable\/zurich-sustainability-round-table-mapping-the-pathway-to-industry-sustainability-part-4\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Zurich Sustainability Round Table<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>As the sector continues to work to find a solution that will best address the surge in mental health-related claims &#8211; many such claims ultimately proving to be classified as episodic in nature &#8211; one Riskinfo reader asked this simple question:<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;Is &#8216;episodic disability insurance&#8217; not disability income insurance?&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This great question highlights that product structures themselves don&#8217;t necessarily need to change much, but rather that a hybrid approach may assist. For example, is there a &#8216;Disability Income Insurance&#8217; type of product which can be developed to simply pay a benefit on diagnosis of the episodic disability, and where a staged benefit payment over time is based on a pre-set dollar amount rather than on the claimant&#8217;s income? Such an offer has parallels to Agreed Value IP, but we&#8217;ll leave it to the product manufacturers and actuaries to mull over whether such a hybrid offer might be commercially sustainable.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, another reader noted during the week that as &#8216;episodic&#8217; does not mean permanent:<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;Insurers should not have started accepting these claims in the first place.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Our poll remains open for another week as the conversation continues&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There appears to be strong support among the adviser community for life insurers to find a way to deliver new product solutions catering to insured lives suffering total disability on an episodic basis. As we go to press, 82% of those voting in our latest poll support the poll statement around developing new product solutions, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":81922,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8294,8,241,49,5121],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-claims","category-compliance-regulation","category-conferences-and-events","category-polls","category-sustainability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81917","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=81917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}