Insurers failing to innovate

Darrin Bull, Sovereign's senior manager risk and health product, spoke at last week's Australian and New Zealand Institute of Insurance and Finance Life Conference about the lack of big, game-changing innovations in the local insurance market.

He said innovation in New Zealand's life and health insurance market is dominated by small, incremental changes to products, with a particular obsession with benchmarks.

Living assurance in New Zealand covers 44 conditions and since May there have been five new releases in the market, he said.

"It's a bit like, ‘I see your angioplasty and raise you dementia," he said.  "We need to break out of this arms race."