ALUCA CMG
The ALUCA CMG held their annual Legal Insights seminars this year in both Sydney and Melbourne, featuring the following topics:
- Turks Legal – Shifting TPD Coverage, issues arising in moving from standard to ADL cover
- Colin Biggers & Paisley – 2014 ICA amendments – 29 (6) and the reasonable and prudent insurer
- HWL Ebsworth – If the job fits…assessing suitability for work under TPD definitions
Our Sydney session was held in the Hertiage Ballroom at the Westin Hotel on 9 March 2017.
We were pleased to again bring Legal Insights to Melbourne, the session was held on 10 May 2017 at the AMP Business Centre. Once again, we were very pleased with the level of attendance and the feedback provided. Many thanks to our speakers for volunteering their service to research and present.
Our next events are Financial Workshops to be held in Melbourne on 12th July 2017 and Sydney on 19th July 2017. We will be partnering with ALUCA VIC for the Melbourne session. The sessions with feature Jo Hetherington, Head of Health Claims and Underwriting Financial Risk at TAL. She will be discussing “Getting the maths right” and “Income Splitting”, we look forward to welcoming you there.
Our final news to share is that in the last quarter we welcomed new committee members Steve Szabo of OnePath and Melissa Andrew of CommInsure in NSW and also Emily Bridger of AIA and Emy Vamos of KPMG in VIC.
If you have any suggestions for topics which you would like us to explore further please do not hesitate to reach out to myself or any of the other committee members.
ALUCA Medical Subgroup
The third Medical Subgroup event was held in Sydney on May 15th at AMP CQ, Level 26. The event was well attended and received great feedback.
The focus of the event was “customer behaviour” at underwriting and claims time and the title for the event was “Lies, damned lies, and statistics – a walk around behaviour, truth and health in insurance medicine”
The event began with Dr John Cummins presenting “Slowing the biological clock and its relevance to underwriting – reflections based upon 12,000 preventative health assessments”.
Dr Cummins shared with us what he had learnt as a practising preventative physician expert, implications for the insurance industry with its current norms and potential opportunities for the insurance.
Dr Doron Samuel was next up presenting “Would I lie to you?” or “Applying Behavioural Economics to Underwriting” or how to make millions without trying too hard. Dr Samuel shared with us the research undertaken by him on the impact on behavioural economics interventions on real customers applying for life and disability insurance. The research provided scientific evidence of aggregated levels of false-negative self-disclosure, that behavioural science can be employed to improve disclosures at the time of underwriting and that it can do so with lower operational cost and with considerable benefit to customers, staff and earnings.
The event finished with a presentation on “Surveillance 2.0 – Forensic Online Investigations and Psychiatric Disability Claims” by Dr Julian Parmegiani.
Dr Parmegiani spoke about how publicly available, online data can be used to test impairment. It is possible to find and organise data to address claim issues for more effective insights and valid legal outcomes. Open source or “public” data repositories, published by multiple authors (including those posted by the claimants themselves) collected from multiple online sources can provide much higher levels of certainty for claims assessment.
If you would like a copy of the presentations, please contact ALUCA secretariat or Goran on goran.lazic@bigpond.com.
WESTERN AUSTRALIA SUB-GROUP
This quarter ALUCA WA has tried to emulate some of the great events being held in other states. The committee searched long and hard for a ‘big ticket’ headline speaker who could draw a crowd from the financial services industry in Perth.
It was a tough call because although the committee are very well connected in their own spheres, none of us managed to find a suitable draw card. However, with the help of one of WA’s finest Financial Advisers, Serena West, we were able to get a hook into the famous AFL player Matthew Pavlich.
“The Pav” is a man who needed no introduction in WA, but has an amazing pedigree 16 year AFL career, playing 353 games and kicking 700 goals and is the most decorated player in Fremantle’s history. He was also the captain for a staggering 9 years and has now made the transition to a successful off pitch career. He is commentating for Fox Footy and channel 9. He has written an autobiography and will finish an MBA this year.
We were treated to more than a few footie tales but Matthew was also very open, honest and genuine in his segments on driving high performance teams, diversity and mental health in high level sports.
From an achievement point of view this event went way beyond what we could have hoped for, with 70 attendees. We had a few Financial Advisers, Insurance Case managers, Lawyers, Psychotherapists and Medical Providers. To put this in context, it is almost double the number we usually have attending events. We all had a great time doing a bit of Hero Worshipping and then networking to finish up such a great event.
A huge thank you to the whole committee who had a huge job coordinating everything that went along with this event. We now have our noses to the grindstone putting together our triple event for early September.
VICTORIA SUB-GROUP
Hello from a chilly Victoria. Winter has definitely arrived and as I am traveling around the city I see people swathed in warm woollens and cosy scarfs. While some of you may pity us in our cooler climate I take heart in a roaring fire, a cup of hot chocolate and the childlike joy of being able to see your breath in the morning.
Although the current weather may be chilly, there is a warm outlook on the horizon in the shape of the Victorian mini-ALUCA. We have now locked in the date, Thursday the 12th of October, and the location – the fabulous Langham hotel on the Southbank. This will be an all-day event with drinks afterwards so lots of opportunity to network as well as learn and share.
Although the committee is still finalising the line-up we already have some exciting speakers organised to make sure the day is both fun filled and educational. We will be presenting a range of topics based on a future focussed theme. They will include Bill Monday from Pacific Life Re and Peter Riddell from TurksLegal. We are also looking to bring you a segment on InsurTech – not sure what that is?…..come along learn about this new area of insurance and hear more about the amazing innovations coming down the pipe to an insurer near you!
We will be sending out invitations before the event. Number are limited so be quick when it arrives and grab a space. The Victorian ALUCA committee looks forward to seeing you there.