Partners growing while other insurers deal with issues

Partners Life achieved its highest market share ever for new business in the six months to September 30 and now has the fourth biggest inforce life book in the industry.

Thursday, January 9th 2020, 9:25AM

Sean Kam

Partners Life is maintaining a profitable growth trajectory into the new decade, with the six months to September 30 marking an increase in both total comprehensive income and underlying insurance profit compared to the corresponding period the previous year. Underlying profit has improved due to reduced experience variances and profitable growth of the in-force book.

Partners Life chief financial officer Sean Kam says new business is up 7% and in-force premiums are up 15%. He says the market presents a significant growth opportunity currently. "Our strategic focus is on positive customer outcomes and supporting the independent advice channel."

"As the business is free from the market distractions associated with merger and acquisition integration, remediation of legacy issues and downturn in bancassurance volumes, we remain focused on sustainable and profitable growth.”

During the period Partners Life has continued development and delivery of its innovative suite of electronic tools. The recent releases of its customer education and adviser sales tool, EVINCE, and its electronic application and underwriting tool, MUM, have been received extremely well by advisers, he says.

"The tools will serve to both enhance the customer experience and improve the efficiency of both advisers and Partners Life. The strategy is to continue to invest in existing and new integrated digital tools across the business."

Financial Performance

Group company comprehensive Income for the six months to September 2019 was $36.8 million, compared to $18.1 million for the previous period.

Partners Life measures its success on the basis of underlying insurance profit, which excludes the benefit of economic assumptions due to decreasing interest rates, as these are outside of management control. Underlying profit was $11.8 million, compared to $5.9 million for the previous interim period.

New business API issued for the six months was $29.3 million, up 7% on the previous interim period. This has translated to the company’s highest ever new business market share of 25.9% for individual risk products in the September quarter.

Total in-force API for risk and medical policies increased by 15% to $314.4 million as at 30 September 2019.

Partners Life now has the fourth highest in-force for individual risk products with a market share of 10.5%.

Tags: Partners Life