CEO Corner

Welcome to the Winter edition of RiskeBusiness. It’s been another strong quarter with many ALUCA events successfully held including the Rehabilitation Professional development days and the annual ALUCA Life Insurance Excellence Awards night held in Melbourne at the stunning Arts Centre.

Thank you to our sponsors and all who contributed to ALUCA’s Life Insurance Excellence Awards. Congratulations again to all ALUCA Award finalists and winners. It was a very positive and affirming night to recognise, in the face of the industry challenges – all that is good in the industry and the incredible talent that was showcased. You can read more about the night including the winners and finalists in this edition of ReB. Next year ALUCA’s Life Insurance Excellence Awards night will return to Sydney and will be held on Thursday May 21^st at Darling Harbour. Save the Date!

ALUCA is currently working hard to ensure we continue to deliver on our purpose and strategy to educate and professionalise the life insurance industry. There has never been a more important time for this. ALUCA is committed to providing on-going educational and informative events with the support of our sponsorship partners. We strongly encourage all ALUCA members to be recognised for their professionalism and ongoing education via ALUCA’s Certified Professional Life Insurance (CPLI) accredited membership program that was successfully launched in November 2017. Our education panel met this June and approved another 20 accredited members – congratulations to them all. The Education panel will meet again in late September.

ALUCA’s strong and continued focus on education has led to ALUCA exploring a number of different educational options and opportunities to potentially provide members award level educational qualifications. This will be explored more with our key stakeholders and partners before discussing this at ALUCA’s strategy planning day in August. We’d love to hear from any members who would like to share their views about this.

We have also now completed the update and revision of ALUCA’s Life Insurance competency framework that now includes many of the regulatory changes and updates from the last 18 months. Thanks again to ALUCA Life Member and former Executive Officer, Tony O’Leary for doing this.

In August we’ll be holding our platinum sponsored ALUCA Executive Leaders Forum at NSW Parliament House on Thursday August 8^th. This is an exclusive and intimate, invitation only event for Senior life insurance leaders and their Heads of Claims, Underwriting and Rehabilitation to all come together. We’re delighted that we’ll be joined on the day by Brett Clark Group CEO and Managing Director from TAL and Andrew Gill, Managing Director, Pacific Life Re Australia.  We will explore amongst other topics how as an industry we need to raise professional standards and what measures we can undertake to rebuild community trust, pride and confidence in our industry.

A reminder that this year we have our State Professional development days, affectionately known as MiniLuca’s.  The dates for each are as follows: WA – Thursday 22^nd August,  SA – Friday 6^th September, QLD – Thursday 12^th September, NSW – Wednesday October 16^th and VIC – Thursday 17^th October. Save those dates in your diary to make sure you don’t miss out.

You will also see in this edition of ReB that applications for the 2019 ALUCA TurksLegal Scholarship are opening and the winners will be announced at the NSW PD day on October 16^th.   We are also delighted to share that the ALUCA MLC Monash award is also open for final year Monash Allied health students which you can also read more about in this edition of ReB.

I look forward to seeing you at an ALUCA event or connecting via ALUCA’s social media platforms.

All the very best,

Amanda McKernan
ALUCA CEO
ceo@aluca.com.au

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Welcome to the 2019 Autumn RiskeBusiness edition.  It’s been a bumpy start to the year as the industry continues to be buffeted by the winds of regulatory and corporate change with the release back in February of the Hayne Royal Commission report. This report was a key focus area at ALUCA’s recent strategic planning day with the Chair of the ALUCA working party providing insights on the key areas of the report specific to life insurance underwriters, claims and rehabilitation professionals and the potential solutions for our members and industry moving forward.

We proudly launched this working party report at an Executive Leaders briefing in Sydney. This was followed by an email to all members sharing a copy of the report. We held back the release of this edition of ReB so we could share it here too. I encourage you all to read this and very much hope that the analysis provided of the key relevant areas is of assistance to you & your organisation with the possible solutions for moving forward. Thanks again to all of the working party led by Tony O’Leary for so generously providing their time & insights. This speaks volumes about our passionate volunteers, their dedication & commitment to the ongoing education and professional development of both the industry & ALUCA members. Something that we know is important to all ALUCA members. You can read ALUCA’s full working party briefing report in this edition of ReB.

Following on from a productive strategy planning day I’m delighted to share some of ALUCA’s key strategic priorities and activities for this year. They include: creating greater traction and awareness for ALUCA’s Certified Professional Life Insurance (CPLI) accreditation & continuous professional development (CPD) membership program. We’ve had a lot of members applying for this and the education committee have just reviewed this last quarters applications.  In the current environment it’s never been more important to demonstrate the professionalism of our industry, to that end we will continue to drive CPLI awareness with a series of roadshows. That’s how committed we are to making this accreditation program available  to as many members as possible by coming into your workplaces to provide more information about these programs to help accredit as many of your teams as possible – at no charge to you – that’s how important we feel this is –  and also provide education about the importance of ongoing continuous professional development and how we can help with this too.

On that note if you’d like to take advantage of a Roadshow at your offices please drop either myself or our Secretariat Officer a note and we’ll organise that at a time that woks for you and your teams.

The latest annual member research highlighted ALUCA’s different member and partner needs.  Many of you mentioned you would like to see us providing more educational opportunities on line. This is another key strategic activity that we are committed to – providing a digital strategy to provide online content for all to access 24 x 7. We are now looking at the next evolution of ALUCA’s website to help upgrade this platform and will keep you informed of these developments.

ALUCA events are now in full swing including ALUCA’s annual Life Insurance Excellence Awards night which will be held this year in Melbourne on May 22^nd at the Arts Centre. Nominations have now closed but tickets are still available. Please do come and show your support for your colleagues. Help us celebrate and recognise excellence in the industry with the wonderful and highly deserving people who have been nominated.

I look forward to hopefully seeing you there or at a future ALUCA event or activity. Here’s wishing you all a very happy and safe Easter.

Warmest wishes,

Amanda McKernan
ALUCA CEO
ceo@aluca.com.au

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Happy New Year! Hope you and your loved ones have all enjoyed a wonderful Christmas filled with much love, laughter and joy  and here’s to a great 2019.

Welcome to the summer edition of ReB.  We live in interesting times or in the words of Robert Kennedy “All of us might wish at times that we lived in a more tranquil world, but we don’t. And if our times are difficult and perplexing, so are they challenging and filled with opportunity.”  This sentiment was echoed in many of the talks that I attended at the ALUCA end of year events in both WA and NSW.  In NSW members enjoyed a timely session on resilience with former Wallaby legend David Campese. The event was opened by Andrew Gill, Managing Director at Pacific Life Re as well as ALUCA’s Chair and NSW Chair.  They each talked about the challenges the industry has faced throughout 2018 and the need for us all to continue with a strong customer focus, renewing the community’s attention on the social and economic good that the life insurance industry provides.

This is something important for us all to reflect on as we move into 2019 as well as the critical importance of the ongoing education and professionalism of the industry.  ALUCA’s Life Insurance Competency framework and Certified Professional Life Insurance (CPLI) program helps in this regard by setting a strong benchmark for professional standards for Life Insurance Underwriting, Claims and Rehabilitation professionals and enables ALUCA and its members to respond to the changing landscape of our industry.

I’m pleased to share that work has continued on ALUCA’s Life Insurance Competency framework, led by life member Tony O’Leary,  to ensure it remains up to date and relevant (along with the CPLI program) for professional Underwriting, Claims and Rehabilitation professionals working in Life Insurance.  As a members’ association run by members for members, we have not only first hand, inside insights into the issues facing our industry every day, but understand the professional development needs of those within it.  Make 2019 the year that you invest in your professionalism and ongoing education by becoming an accredited ALUCA member who can be proud to use the post-nominal’s, Certified Professional Life Insurance (CPLI) that shows your commitment to your continuous professional development.

Other important news is that a working party in respect of the Life Insurance underwriting and claims considerations coming out of the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry is being set up and chaired by Tony O’Leary, Life Member of ALUCA. The Royal Commission is due to hand down its report by 1 February 2019 thus the bulk of the Working Party’s tasks will need to be performed in February 2019. You can read more about this in this edition of ReB.

I’d like to take this opportunity to provide a heartfelt thanks to all of our hardworking and dedicated  volunteers who are central to the ongoing success of ALUCA. I’d also like to thank our sponsors for their ongoing support and each and everyone of you for taking time out of your busy lives to be part of ALUCA in 2018 whether that was attending a state seminar, national Awards night, national conference, Leadership or Medical Forum, becoming accredited , reading ReB, attending a webinar, submitting a scholarship paper , taking part in our research and showing your support  for your member industry association. Thank you.

Once again I’d like to wish you and your loved ones a very happy 2019.

Warmest wishes,

Amanda McKernan
ALUCA CEO
ceo@aluca.com.au

PS Don’t forget to renew your ALUCA membership for 2019 due on Jan 1st, 2019!

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My congratulations and thanks to everyone involved in making ALUCA’s biennial premier conference held in Hobart last month one of our highest rated. It’s been inspiring and humbling to receive so much positive feedback about the highly relevant content, speakers, venue and location.  It was really heart warming to witness the genuine camaraderie, connectedness and warmth of delegates interacting during the breaks. A sentiment that was echoed by one of the conference sponsors who had never been to an ALUCA conference or event previously and was struck by this. The conference truly showcased what ALUCA is all about educating, developing and connecting ALUCA members.

The conference papers will be made available shortly via ALUCA’s Member Centre. You can read more about the conference and view photos from the event in the conference article here.

Spoiler alert – In the conference article you’ll see our next biennial conference location has been announced: The Star, Gold Coast, October 2020. The bar for this has been set very high thanks to our hardworking conference committee headed up by Board members Mary Sinclair-Porter and Sean Potter. A huge thanks to all of them and our sponsors. Congratulations also to the Turks Legal and SwissRe scholarship winners and Life Member Peter Jones – which you can also read more about later.

Strategy

ALUCA’s Board met in August for our strategic planning day which included a review of key activities and our measures/performance against each of these. Member engagement and member growth being high on our agenda. Both of which exceeded our target with our highest membership engagement and our highest membership levels of over 1,800 members. Our professional development accreditation membership has also proved very successful, exceeding expectations. We also discussed the changes to ALUCA’s Medical Sub Group who will be evolving to a Medical Forum – similar in structure to our Executive Leadership group. A Forum structure run and supported by ALUCA will ensure we are better able to leverage and grow this important group of members who currently make up 2.5% of our membership. You can also read more about this in this edition of ReB.

Webinar

We experienced some technical issues with our first webinar platform provider which set us back in delivering this years webinar program. I’m delighted to share that we have a new provider and successfully held the annual CPLI webinar for accredited members with Nick Kirwan from the FSC and life member Tony O’Leary in September. If you missed this you can now view via the Member centre.

Governance

This last quarter has been a challenging one for our industry. Corporate governance is a critical part of any business and has been the subject of some of the issues arising from the Royal Commission. At ALUCA we are committed to ensuring we have and uphold strong corporate governance. We are in the process of rolling out policies, procedures and agreements with all of our volunteers, contractors and staff alike and are embarking on a big cultural transformation program to deliver our 2020 strategy.

Professionalism, ongoing education

I personally found the conference session with Dee Maddigan about how companies/industries can recover from brand damage and rebuild their reputation really interesting. She talked about changing the perceptions of your customers via actions and strong branding, instilling confidence through the promises that are made and over deliver on these. This will help to create delighted customers and an industry people want to be a part of. She also went on to mention the importance of increasing the professionalism of the industry with a continued focus on ongoing education and great customer service. All of which are important to us at ALUCA and as I said in my conference opening notes it’s never been more important to continue to focus on the professionalism and ongoing education of the industry and reinforce the enormous & positive difference we make to the communities we all serve and the value that Life Insurance professionals contribute to this vibrant industry.

I’ll sign out on that note and look forward to catching up with you at an ALUCA end of year event.

Amanda McKernan
ALUCA CEO
ceo@aluca.com.au

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Much has happened at ALUCA this last quarter with ALUCA’s inaugural Awards night at the end of May, as well as in the broader Life Insurance market with the final report, released at the end of March, from the Parliamentary Joint Committee (PJC)  on Corporations and Financial Services for the Life Insurance Industry which made a number of unanimous recommendations.

It’s important to remember though that whilst the life insurance industry faces these unprecedented challenges that Life insurance continues to play a vital role in Australian communities, providing financial protection to those policyholders in need.   To this point, if I can quote from some of ALUCA’s Life Insurance Excellence Awards judges from outside of the industry who were  moved by many of the stories shared in the nominations for ALUCA’s Life Insurance Excellence Awards

• ” There is a true purpose to this industry. Dealing with people’s lives at a time of need”
• ” It really opened my eyes up to the real human side of the industry. I was moved by many of the stories showing how people go out their way to help and support their customers in times of need

Thank you to all who contributed to ALUCA’s Life Insurance Excellence Awards. The awards were designed to recognise and celebrate the value that great Life Insurance underwriting, claims, rehabilitation and service providers create.  Despite all of the distractions in the industry we received 80+ nominations across all award categories – although only 4 each for both of the Underwriting award categories!  You can read more about this, the judging process and the full Award finalists and winners in the awards article in this edition of ReB.

The Awards night itself was very memorable with such positive feedback from all who attended. Our guest speaker Pr Ron McCallum was inspiring and insightful and really helped set the tone of excellence for the whole night. The MC, ABC medical Reporter, Sophie Scott did a fantastic job of interviewing all award winners and keeping us on time. She also commented how very impressed she was by the whole night.

On behalf of ALUCA thank you for joining us for an evening where we were able to celebrate all of the incredible talent in the Life Insurance industry and the achievements each and everyone has made. Congratulations to all of the award finalists, winners and entrants. Everyone should feel incredibly proud of the enormous and positive difference we make to the communities we all serve. ALUCA’s Life Insurance Excellence Awards for 2019 will be held in Melbourne and nominations will open up in November this year.

Following on from last years ALUCA’s first invitation-only  Executive Leaders Forum at Sydney’s Taronga zoo hosted by our platinum sponsors, this years Forum will be held in the beachside Melbourne suburb of St Kilda. A huge thanks to all of the Platinum sponsors again for their support and all of ALUCA’s sponsors for their ongoing contribution.

A reminder to  register for ALUCA’s biennial conference being held in Hobart from Oct 11- 13th. Places are filling fast so make sure you don’t miss out.  The conference theme is Innov18 – life changing. The theme is very relevant as the life insurance industry looks to make a fundamental shift from being a risk- and process-based business to one oriented around digital capabilities, data and insights, and one where digital plays a critical role in customer engagement. Developments in analytics, wearable devices, connected health, and artificial intelligence will increase the breadth of insights that can be generated. Hear about this and more at the conference which qualifies for ALUCA CPD points. You can read more about this in the ALUCA awards article – click here.

Finally don’t forget applications for the 2018 ALUCA TurksLegal Scholarship are now open and close on September 2nd!  Entries opened on July 2nd. Read more about this here.

I look forward to catching up with you all at an ALUCA event very soon or connecting via ALUCA’s social media platforms – click here

Amanda McKernan
ALUCA CEO
ceo@aluca.com.au

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Welcome to the Autumn RiskeBusiness edition.  2018 is shaping up to be another bumper year both for our industry and ALUCA as the life insurance industry continues to be buffeted by the winds of regulatory and corporate change.  ALUCA is committed to ensuring our strategies and organisation remain agile and adaptable to remain at the forefront of the life insurance industry.

On that note, ALUCA’s Board, subgroup chairs, ReB Editor, Secretariat Officer and myself convened last month to formulate and review ALUCA’s  strategic goals around our 5 strategic pillars and developed priorities for the coming year. It was extremely uplifting to be surrounded by such smart and passionate people all aligned to delivering on our business strategies.

We reviewed the latest member insights from the end of last year’s research which was valuable in helping us better understand what members want, the key challenges members identified for 2018 and to track our progress over the last 12 months .  We were incredibly heartened by the results with strong satisfaction scores and positive feedback. Thank you to all who took part in this. You can read more about these high level research results in this issue of ReB.

The business strategy meeting was highly productive.  We agreed on our key priorities for this year which included : continuing to promote ALUCA’s revised professional accreditation CPLI program (Certified Professional Life Insurance) making this as user friendly and accessible for all, launching ALUCA’s inaugural Life Insurance Excellence Awards Night on May 24th in Sydney, launching ALUCA’s biennial conference in Hobart from Oct 11- 13th, refreshing ALUCA’s rules – passed at the March 2018 SGM meeting, gaining greater awareness for ALUCA’s competency framework for underwriters, claims and rehabilitation professionals and rolling out webinars and more recorded video content for our overseas and regional members.

So another full year ahead! You will see we have a strong line up of state seminars  with 5 events in April. It was great to see many of you at the recent complimentary  NSW seminar in Sydney with GenRe’s global CMO Dr John O’Brien and the special global seminar with SCOR’s global thought leader Dr Daria Ossipova.

A reminder that nominations close for ALUCA’s Life Insurance Excellence Awards on April 11th so make sure you don’t miss out.  If you’d like to win an ALUCA conference package to Hobart then follow and connect with us on 2 of our social media platforms and tell us in 25 words or less why you’d like to win – entries close on May 13th and the winner announced at the Awards night. Read more about these in this ReB edition

We have also extended the special member amnesty upgrade offer until the end of September to give everyone more time to find and locate your credentials! Please also join with me in welcoming all of the newly accredited CPLI members that you can view in this edition of ReB.

A huge thanks to all of our sponsors for the 2018-9 period . We really appreciate your support.  Also a heartfelt thanks to all of our wonderful volunteers and a shout out to all retiring Chairs/committee members too. You can read  the inspiring interview profile in this ReB edition with former ALUCA QLD Sub Group Chair Aaron Widt who was in this role for the last decade.

Finally, I’d like to leave you all with some heartening and inspiring words from Dion’s interview when asked about what excited him about our industry.. ” The role we play in supporting and helping our partners to make a positive impact on the communities we all serve and our collective social purpose of helping people in their time of need. …  Our industry has a collection of wonderful people who are passionate about what we do.” So true…

Amanda McKernan
ALUCA CEO
ceo@aluca.com.au

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2018 Memberships

Have you renewed your 2018 ALUCA Membership?

Are you aware that we have higher accredited membership levels? Be rewarded and recognised for your Life Insurance experience, capabilities, leadership experience, underwriting, claims and rehabilitation qualifications with Certified Professional Life Insurance accreditation.  You can read more about this in the membership section of ALUCA’s website – or in the CPLI article click here…

Photos to be sent of each of the Award winners

CPLI membership – amnesty period extended to Sept 30th, 2018

Have you applied for an ALUCA accredited membership to become a Certified Professional Life Insurance member? Click here for more details.

 

ALUCA Turks Legal scholarship now open

It’s hard to believe that we are almost at the end of 2017! I’ve taken this note from the annual report and updated it. It’s been a highly productive year full of much activity. We kicked off in January 2017 with our first Executive leaders lunch where we explored ALUCA’s high level strategy and results from the end of year member surveys.

The results from this research were reviewed in detail at ALUCA’s planning day In February in conjunction with ALUCA’s strategic goals around our 5 strategic pillars. The insights were helpful in informing our key strategic project priorities for the year in addition to all of our regular activities.

I am pleased to report we have delivered on all of these key strategic initiatives over the course of the year, as outlined in further detail  in the main body of the report. However at a high level they include – a comprehensive revamp and relaunch of the ALUCA website, the development and release of ALUCA’s best practice Underwriting, Claims and Rehabilitation capabilities framework, a major update, refreshment and relaunch of ALUCA ‘s accreditation and CPD program, the launch of an Executive Leaders Forum for the most senior Underwriter and Claims Heads, the launch of a student membership category,  holding ALUCA’s first Roadshow in February at ANZ/OnePath’s Sydney offices, the launch of ALUCA webinars, refreshing and relaunching ALUCA’s social media platforms, and forging greater links with other industry bodies both here and overseas. These initiatives are just a few of the many ways we support our members and stakeholders.

You will see in the table of events for the year that we have held more events and activities ( 36 for 2017) than ever before.

Membership levels have gone from strength to strength with our highest recorded levels of 1613 ( uop from 1575 at the time of finishing the Annual Report!) – even more remarkable for a non conference year.

A huge and sincere thanks to our many Subgroup volunteers and other volunteers including Michael Reid, the Editor of RiskeBusiness  – they have worked tirelessly to provide an impressive program of content and events. Their passion and dedication to the ongoing education and professional development of not just ALUCA members but the industry is inspiring as is the support of our sponsors. Thank you to all of them for their ongoing support and contribution to enable us to do what we do.

It has been and is a real delight to work with ALUCA’s committed Board. A heartfelt thanks to all of them for the last 12 months who all provided countless volunteer hours to ALUCA.  I’d like to acknowledge, in particular, the support of the our hard working Chair Jim Welsh whose passion and enthusiasm for ALUCA and the industry is infectious  Thanks also to Pat Chew and TAS, ALUCA’s Secretariat, our marketing interns Danielle Pettit and James Dommett, and talented designer Nicole Pettit and ReB designer Jamie for all of their great work and input.

It’s been such a great pleasure to get to meet so many members at ALUCA events this last year. Thank you for your support of ALUCA and taking time out of your busy lives to invest in your ongoing professional development – and connecting with fellow ALUCA members.

It is an incredible honour to be CEO of such a dynamic member industry Association. We all have much to be proud of as an industry that is going through a lot of change but is such a large part of the fabric of society. I’m looking forward to the next 12 months as we continue to move forward to create an even stronger industry and a member industry association.

Here’s wishing you and your loved ones very warm seasons greetings and here’s to an amazing 2018. Look forward to seeing you all in 2018.

Warmest regards,

Amanda

PS A reminder that annual renewals for ALUCA’s membership is now due and don’t forget to gain recognition for your Life insurance experience and educational qualifications with our new CPLI accredited membership program and member upgrade offer.

Amanda McKernan
ALUCA CEO
ceo@aluca.com.au

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Welcome to the Spring edition of RiskeBusiness.  Spring traditionally being a period of renewal and rejuvenation – we started our Spring rejuvenation a few weeks early this year holding the ALUCA strategic planning day in Melbourne in mid August. This was a time for ALUCA’s board and sub-group chairs to reflect on our progress with ALUCA’s 2020 strategy. It was also an opportunity to ensure our continued alignment to deliver to ALUCA’s key strategic priorities and ensure we are meeting our members and partners needs.

A key project high on our strategic priorities is ALUCA’s Life Insurance Underwriting, Claims & Rehabilitation competency framework (the ALUCA competency framework). I’m delighted to share we have just completed the industry consultation phase and are now working to consolidate and update the document which will then be released and available to members in the next few months. Thank you to everyone for your feedback and to the executive  leaders who took time out of their busy schedules to join us for a series of lunches held in Sydney and Melbourne in August where we tabled and discussed the framework as well as ALUCA’s Rehab group who also provided some great feedback to the rehabilitation aspects of the framework. You can read more about this project in the article I have written in this edition of ReB to provide more background and context for the project.

Linked to this project is ALUCA’s accreditation and CPD program. We are currently working our way through the alignment of the different technical and business competencies from emerging, core, advanced and expert to our different membership and accreditation levels. This will also be released to members along with the competency framework and will supersede the existing accreditation. We’re really excited about both of these projects and know from the research that this is something that both members and partners really value and wanted.

It was a real pleasure interviewing two leading Managing Directors for this edition. I immensely enjoyed both. The first was with Mark Senkevics, SwissRe’s Managing Director and Head of Australia & New Zealand. SwissRe are a very valued platinum partner and support of ALUCA’s and I was really moved by Marks’s passion for the industry, people and customers, his humility and infectious enthusiasm. His parting words of advice really resonated   “We all work in a fantastic industry that is a big part of the fabric of society – we all need to make sure we maintain our strong focus on customer outcomes.”

This was also true of the interview with GenRe’s Managing Director, Andres Webersinke, another very valued sponsor and supporter of ALUCA’s. He shared his thoughts and reasons for writing an informative article on suicide which he kindly let us use to support R U OK day. Suicide is a global issue that tragically is the biggest killer of younger Australians. As an industry there is a lot we can do and as Andres said  “Life insurers play an important role protecting the financial health of a family also in case of a suicide but we have to think more about the role life insurers can play in protecting the life itself and preventing early death.”

On that important note we will be exploring mental health and other issues at ALUCA’s VIC Miniluca event on October 12th and in NSW’s Professional Development Day on October 17th. We will also be exploring this and so much more at next years ALUCA’s biennial conference in Hobart from Oct 11th – 13th. If you’d like to win a place to ALUCA’s biennial conference next year with a travel and accommodation package included make sure you follow us on social media – Facebook, twitter and Linkedin and enter the competition.

Thanks again to all of our dedicated volunteers, members, partners and supporters for your ongoing support of ALUCA. It’s been another great quarter.

All the very best,

Amanda McKernan
ALUCA CEO
ceo@aluca.com.au

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Welcome to the Winter edition of RiskeBusiness.  The last quarter at ALUCA has been yet another very busy and fruitful one.  Thank you to all of our hardworking sub-groups who have provided a host of highly relevant events and seminars in every state plus lined up a strong program of events for the rest of the year including  MiniLuca’s and Professional development days.  You can register for these via our website.

That brings me to our website news!  We’re delighted that our new and refreshed website is now well and truly up and running. It’s taken a while to develop – from a new look and feel, changes to the navigation, improving the content and ensuring you can all access the site easily from multiple devices. There are many more smaller but impactful changes all designed to make your experience of the ALUCA website that much more easier. You’ll also see in the Member’s Centre area we now have videos for you to enjoy at your leisure plus a CPD section that you can track your ongoing professional development with via a self service tool. We really hope you like the changes, and would love to hear from you if you have any feedback, please let us know via our Facebook or Twitter accounts.

In May we held ALUCA’s first invitation-only  Executive Leaders Forum at Sydney’s Taronga zoo hosted by our platinum sponsors. A huge thanks to all of them and for the participants for making this event possible.  The Forum eventuated from Executive Leaders feedback requesting  a Forum specifically tailored for their needs. You can read more about the event in the article that was written by our new student marketing intern, James Dommett who helped out on the day. The feedback has been so strong that we are now looking at providing a similar Future Leaders Forum – stay tuned for further details.

You may also have seen that we now have a new student membership category for full-time students. It was developed to help promote careers in life insurance – which can be diverse, rewarding and challenging. So if you know of a full time student who might like to consider a career in life insurance please let them know about ALUCA’s student membership which is heavily discounted. Proof of full time student status is required.

We also  want to recognise and celebrate the value that great Life Insurance underwriting, claims, rehabilitation and service providers create. To that end we are now advanced in our planning for an inaugural ALUCA Life Insurance Excellence Awards night for the first half of next year. These awards  will provide an opportunity for the best in the profession to recognise the fantastic work being done by their peers and colleagues.  We will have both individual and team categories. More details will follow shortly.

ALUCA’s education working group have also just signed off on an updated best practice industry capabilities framework based on the UK’s Chartered Insurance Institute’s framework that has been adapted  to the Australian life insurance market by highly regarded ALUCA life member Tony O’Leary from G & T Risk management. A huge thanks to Tony. The framework  will be released shortly for industry consultation.

It’s a busy time for the industry too right now with the FSC’s historic Life Insurance Code of Practice (the Code) being adopted and implemented with  compliance with the code from 1 July, 2017.   A great milestone for everyone involved. Wishing everyone much success.

All the very best,

Amanda McKernan
ALUCA CEO
ceo@aluca.com.au

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2017 Memberships

Have you renewed your 2017 ALUCA Membership?

Are you aware that we have higher membership levels that recognises your Life Insurance experience, capabilities, leadership experience, underwriting and claims authority and qualifications. You can read more about this in the membership section of ALUCA’s website – click here