Sub Group Reports – Winter 2016

ALUCA CMG COMMITTEE

We ran two Legal Insights seminars this year which. This session has become a much anticipated event in the Sydney life insurance calendar. In 2013 we had approximately 70 people register, while in 2014 we had 120 people attend and in 2015 we had 163 registrations. This year we are happy to report that we have also opened up this session to Melbourne (partnering with ALUCA VIC) with plans to potentially expand into Brisbane at a later stage.

Our Sydney session was held at the UNSW CBD Campus on 13th April 2016 and speakers included Turks Legal, Jocelyn Furlan former SCT chair and HWL Ebsworth. Our Melbourne session was held on 2nd June 2016 at the AMP auditorium in Docklands. Speakers included Turks Legal and HWL Ebsworth. Both sessions saw a good turn out and proved to be very thought provoking and informative with a lot of interaction from the audience.

My thanks go to our speakers for volunteering their service to research and present. I also wish to thank the ALUCA Platinum Education Partners, Gold Scholarship and Sponsorship Partners who enable subgroups like the ALUCA CMG to arrange professional development events at such a reasonable cost. Finally I wish to thank the ALUCA CMG committee for their teamwork and efforts in making this event possible.

Our next event is the annual Claims Managers Dinner, to be held on 18th August 2016. This is an ‘invitation only’ event and another much anticipated function in our calendar. Our guest speaker this year is Kristen Hansen. Kristen Hansen is the founder of EnHansen Performance, supporting executives and managers to build leadership, resilience, adaptability, creativity, coaching, self-management and engagement skills. Kristen draws from her current studies in the Masters of Neuroscience of Leadership and 20 years of management roles with major Australian organisations such as Pacific Dunlop, Fairfax and News Limited.

If you have any suggests for topics you would like us to explore further please do not hesitate to reach out to myself or any of the other committee members.

ALUCA REHAB SUB GROUP

The ALUCA Rehabilitation Sub-Group have two events coming up in September and we hope to see you there – Sydney event: 6 September and Melbourne event (jointly with ALUCA VIC) on 14 September 2016. More details, including registration information will follow soon!

We also have our first working group up and running. The group is reviewing Employability Assessments (EA) used in TPD claims. The purpose is to improve the quality and consistency of rehabilitation services provided on TPD claims by developing EA standards and guidelines. We are looking forward to providing a framework for EAs back to the industry encompassing the skill set for consultants undertaking these assessments, methodology and minimum content.

QLD SUB COMMITTEE

We kicked off our 2016 program with guest speaker from RGA Dr Paul Davis. The topic was “Hypo or Hyper” and provided our ALUCA members with a greater understanding and challenged the audience to consider ‘how well do I know the thyroid gland’. Thank-you to Karyn in particular, RGA, DR Davis and the UQ business school for a great lunchtime session.

On July 6th we hosted a very successful Double Shot Wed event where attendees received twice the educational value. It was a great event.

Dr Curtis Gray MBBS FRANZCP AFRACMA – Psychiatrist in Private Practice, MLCOA Qld and Senior Lecturer, SOM – Northside Clinical School, UQ kicked off the session with medical focus on Sleep, Sleep Disorders and the Workplace.

Steve Tighe was our special guest speaker – Steve is a Futurist and a consumer foresight expert specialising in emerging trends, social change and business planning for the future. The double shot was held over a sit-down lunch at the Pullman hotel.

2016 ALUCA Qld committee has now been finalised with Aaron Widt – President, Matthew Swanson – Secretary, Daniel Devine, Jody O’Sullivan, Peter Crawford, Karen Bradford & Jenny Thompson continue in their roles. Very pleased to announce that Gretel Spizick (MLC) has joined the Qld ALUCA team as Treasurer into the future.
Our third presentation for the year will be held over breakfast on Tuesday 20th September. ALUCA Qld End of Year party seminar will be held on the evening of Thursday 15th December.

Look forward to seeing all of our Qld members and sponsors during our 2016 program.

SA SUB COMMITTEE

ALUCA SA held its first seminar for 2016 on the 4th May where Dr James Hundertmark, Consultant Psychiatrist, presented on ‘Mine field of Mental Health’ covering a wide range of mental illness conditions and their treatment from a psychiatrist’s perspective. The meeting was very well attended with a number of new guests representing claims and rehabilitation services.

The seminar that has just been held on 3rd August  with Dr Jonathon Burdon AM, respiratory physician who presented on respiratory disease was very informative and engaging. Attendees all mentioned it was very relevant and great value.

WA SUB COMMITTEE

ALUCA WA rolled out the red carpet to a Financial Adviser for our May session. “A day in the life of a Financial Adviser” brought the WA Underwriting community together with Carl Maiorana. Despite his baby face Carl has been in financial services for twelve years and has built up his own successful financial advice business. It is always important to lift your gaze and make sure you keep in touch with people who are impacting the business we work in and this session did just that.

We found out Carl’s motivation and passion for the industry, along with many wonderful examples of the value he has added to his customers. It was followed by an energetic and curious Q&A session. Despite the fact we speak to Financial Advisers every day, the well structured and critical questions that were asked brought a lot to the table for everyone.

Carl has asked how he would measure his success at our event? He was advised that the volume and depth of questions could easily be his yard stick. Judging success by this, we can safely say that Carl was a hit with the WA ALUCA crowd and would be welcome back any time. In lieu of a gift, Carl nominated the mental health charity Act Belong Commit for a donation.

We are fully prepared and looking forward  to our triple development session on August 11th!

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NSW SUB GROUP

We sadly say good bye to two of our committee members Amira Nimerawi and Rehana Masih. We would like to publicly acknowledge them and thank both of them for their commitment and service to our industry and ALUCA NSW.

We are pleased to welcome the new ALUCA NSW committee members: Dr Doron Samuell, Rhiannon Wilson, Lana Collaris and Nilava Sengupta. We are encouraged by the ongoing calibre of the committee and remain dedicated to our members. We are keen to continue to deliver value to our members with the support of the national board.

We kicked off the year with our first free educational seminar in May. We brought back, our keynote speaker from the 2015 Professional Development Day, in view of the feedback to share further insights with us at our breakfast. Professor Jeffery Brand was engaged in the first instance to draw on his experience on change and from an industry that is seeing exponential change. The ageing population is something that will have a significant impact on our industry and it was ideal to get the professor to continue to talk about his research and key insights when it comes to ageing. The great advantage is that he knows our industry, having delved into it himself a little in the past. While the numbers were on the low side, the feedback from those who attended was nothing but commendable.

This brings us to our most recent  seminar held on July 20, which was highly successful and booked out!  We heard from. Dr Antony Lau,  a leading Interventional Cardiologist  who was highly informative, engaging and thoughtful.  This was a session that members had asked for and we’re thrilled we could deliver to those requests.

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VIC SUB COMMITTEE

A cold and foggy day gave way to warm reception for ALUCA Vic and CMG’s first combined event in Melbourne.

The topic this fantastic free for members event, ‘Legal Insights’ was covered over two fantastic presentations by industry experts.

The first presentation was done by John Myatt from TurksLegal. John used recent court cases to provide a valuable insight into how a legal interpretation of TPD definitions, including words such as “…unlike ever to engage in work…” can have a significant difference in outcome on disputed claims.

The second presentation was done by Nicholas Matkovic and Diren Fernando from HWL Ebsworth Lawyers. This presentation used real cases to highlight what practice/process can be beneficial when getting Retrospective Underwriting done on claims. The presentation also showed scenarios based on real court cases were where details given by Underwriters at a court hearing turned out to be either beneficial or of no use to the cases outcome.

Overall a very informative afternoon which also allowed attendee to not only to learn and get insight in to real industry related cases, but also get a chance to see other people within their industry and have a chance to expand their network.

ALUCA Vic is looking forward to continue with its goal of bring valuable and informative events to its members and the industry. Our next event will be in September and will bring together a fantastic line up of Rehab Specialist within the industry.

Stay tuned…

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