Historic publications written by or featuring the retender team
riskinfo - Life Insurance as an Investment - June 2023
Excerpt ‘…How could the tried and tested concepts of indices, diversification, volatility, rebalancing, switching managers and timing apply to life insurance?’
riskinfo - The Thanksgiving Turkey - June 2022
Excerpt: ‘…There is no way to build a product that paid out 100% of the time. But what is an acceptable level? And in particular, what might you build differently if the starting point was solely to minimise any declined claims?’
riskinfo - When the music is playing…
- November 2021
Excerpt: ‘… paper calls for an annual report for government that measures the levels of competition in these two industries, as a way to transparently reflect how the objectives of prudential stability and competition are being balanced in practice.’
Investor Strategy
- September 2021
Excerpt: ‘…As superannuation and life insurance consolidation continues apace, risk firm Retender warns that the government cannot rely on the invisible hand of the market to ensure competitive outcomes.’
Investor Strategy
- February 2021
Excerpt: ‘…we are on an unstoppable trajectory towards increasing competition, increasing transparency and increasing diversification. Taking the old approach may appear safer but those traditional models…are no longer fit for purpose. The industry needs to be open to rethink the way that insurance is sourced for consumers.’
riskinfo - The sustainability fallacy
- March 2020
Excerpt: ‘The precarious nature of Australia’s life insurance industry is in a more parlous state than has been documented, according to a new report..’
Actuaries Digital
- February 2020
Excerpt: ‘Only recently have we started to consider how the persistent smoke in urban areas is affecting our health and we cannot ignore how these natural disasters impact the mental health of survivors and emergency services workers.’
Investment Magazine -
October 2019
Excerpt: ‘…it takes a surprisingly small number of extra claims to negate a portfolio’s profitability. Just five extra claims of $100,000 or one large extra claim of $500,000 on a 20,000-person scheme could increase the claims cost by 25 per cent for that group. Extending this, it might take only five extra claims on a block of $50 million to reduce profits by 5 per cent..’
Investment Magazine - Where has all the competition gone -
September 2019
Excerpt: ‘Limited supply, falling demand and no time to test members receive best outcomes…have all contributed to the cost of insurance for remaining members increasing as a window of significantly reduced competition has opened.’
Actuaries Digital - The cost of consumer expectations - March 2019
Excerpt: ‘Community standards and expectations’ … the idea is that financial service companies (including insurers) need to align their business model with what consumers expect and not just the letter of the law.
Investment Magazine - December 2018
Discusses areas for the industry to self regulate in the wake of the Protecting Your Super (PYS) legislation changes.
ASFA Superfunds magazine - July 2018
It’s a simple message that asks, as Trustees of Superfunds, how can you test the upcoming member pricing changes with maximum competition, independence and transparency?
The Future of Life Insurance - Actuaries Institute
Excerpt: '...It’s easy to call for consumer change but affordability will be affected by the cost of these reforms and needs to be factored into the decision. In support of this debate, a clear understanding on where that balance lies and how it can best be maintained should be investigated.'
Life (insurance) without the banks - Money Management
Excerpt: '...the predictions of those making up that committee...are proving to have been quite prescient'
Complaints about bad coffee - ASFA
Excerpt: 'Getting on the front foot by focusing on proactive activities for the 97.5% of superfund members'
Under the Spotlight - Actuaries Digital
Excerpt: 'Why I’m proud to be an actuary. This is an easy one. I get to work with people smarter than me, no task is ever the same, I’m talking to colleagues every day about difficult challenges and creative solutions and I’m part of a profession that has a phenomenal brand in the community even though no-one knows what we actually do. And I get to have fun doing what I enjoy.'
Dr Seuss on Life Insurance
Excerpt: 'From the reinsurance side, ... the average number of local reinsurer participants (call this a ‘Capacity Index’) has gone from 1.4 in 2013/2014 to 1.7 in 2015/2016. We are also seeing capacity coming in further through offshore reinsurers (with some challenges around the ability to conduct business locally) and local insurers have at times even participated as reinsurers.
Are we there yet? The group risk market 2 years on... - Actuaries Institute
Excerpt: 'The authors concluded that potentially the most significant barrier to change is the misalignment between the manufacturers (both insurers and reinsurers) and the consumers (ultimately the member but represented by the trustees).'
Life Insurers in 2015 are obsolete - Actuaries Institute
Excerpt: 'Competitiveness is going to be driven by how quickly you can learn and disrupt your own business model.'
Never smile at a crocodile - Actuaries Institute
Excerpt: 'Peter Pan, for those of us who remember or have watched the movie with our kids, opens with the line: “All of this has happened before and all of it will happen again"'
Longevity: A reinsurer's perspective - Actuaries Institute
Excerpt: 'Overall, the increased focus on how the insurance industry can develop post retirement solutions is a key goal of this report'
* With thanks to any previous employers, particularly Swiss Re and Pacific Life Re, along with various co-authors, for reproduction of any historical publications involving the current retender team