News Round Up: December 5

Latest interest rate survey of economists; New online quoting tool; First insurer licensed.

Monday, December 5th 2011, 6:58AM 8 Comments

Next OCR increased pushed further into the future

With the European debt crisis dragging on, economists expect Reserve Bank governor Alan Bollard will leave interest rates unchanged on Thursday. To read the full story and our survey of economists Click Here.

New online life insurance research

Inform has launched a new site, www.QuoteMonster.co.nz, which provides quotes for life insurance advisers. The site has had nearly 400 advisers sign up to us it in its first week.

"It takes us an average of 1.93 seconds to calculate the premiums for 11 companies" says Conor Sligo, part of the QuoteMonster team "We cater for well over 100 different add-ons and features within the single quoting platform and generate a report which can fit with most existing sales processes."

Tim von Dadelszen, also at QuoteMonster, says the site will have product research reports next year, but they won't be free.

First insurer licensed

Chartis has become the first insurer in the country to be fully licensed by the Reserve Bank and has transferred its ownership locally to Chartis Insurance New Zealand.

The company formerly operated under its global parent, American Home Assurance Company, and has been providing insurance services in New Zealand for 41 years.

"Under our new company we are keen to emphasise that we will not only offer the same products, and operate with the same personnel and underwriting authorities, but we will also bring decision making closer to our customers. This will result in improved service and even better claims servicing capabilities" said Chartis New Zealand chief Cris Knell.

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Comments from our readers

On 5 December 2011 at 3:12 pm Tim said:

Thanks for the QuoteMonster mention here. We've had another busy day, and the number of advisers registered for QuoteMonster is now up to 430. We'd like to take this opportunity to say thanks to all those early adopters who have fired through such great feedback.
Happy Quoting!
Tim

On 6 December 2011 at 9:27 am anon said:

QuoteMonster - free now but what about the future. What is proposed?

On 6 December 2011 at 10:04 am david whyte said:

Who's behind the launch of this new initiative?

On 6 December 2011 at 10:18 am Tim said:

We have had a few questions along the lines of "why is this free?". We are not a charity, but there is certainly no catch.

There is no ongoing cost to access the premium quoting - it is totally free. We will, in the near future, be launching independent policy research and ratings, and this will come at a cost. However, there will be no requirement to upgrade to the version which includes the research, and the current version (as you see it today) will continue to be available for free. We may also, in the future, sell some advertising on the site :-)

Also, we hope that users that like QuoteMonster will be interested in our other developments (for example, we think that brokers should take a close look at MyCRM to see what impact it could have on their business).

Cheers, Tim

On 6 December 2011 at 3:10 pm Tim said:

Hi David. The development company behind QuoteMonster is Inform. We have been involved in the financial services "tech space" since around 2003, most recently with our biggest ever project - MyCRM. QuoteMonster has been available within MyCRM for a while - but we recently decided to "unplug" it and offer it to all advisers. As I mentioned above, the next version will include independent policy ratings/research (being done by a third party). Cheers.

On 7 December 2011 at 9:07 am anon said:

MyCRM - Could you post a website address please?

On 7 December 2011 at 11:14 am david whyte said:

Thanks Tim - much obliged. I note that you and 4 other Directors of Inform are also Directors of Allied Kiwi. Do you think it might be appropriate to inform potential subscribers of this?

On 7 December 2011 at 3:10 pm Tim said:

David - thanks for the question. QuoteMonster is its own beast. Inform is involved in a range of things, and we certainly makes no secret of our involvement with Allied Kiwi. In fact we shout it from the rooftops within QuoteMonster under the not-so-subtle heading "Product Plug" where we introduce MyCRM, which is available exclusively through Allied Kiwi. However, while we'd like all our users to take a close look at MyCRM and consider Allied Kiwi, QuoteMonster is available to the whole adviser force - whether a person is with Newpark, TNP, Ginger or whatever.

Also, as I mentioned above, we plan to include product research in the near future - which we will charge for (for those that want it). So, we hope to have as many QuoteMonster users as possible - no matter which group they belong to.