Winners of the AFA Life Company of the Year Awards 2021 announced

SYDNEY: 16 March 2022 – Announcing the AFA 2021 Life Company of the Year Awards. TAL Life has been awarded the title of AFA Life Company of the Year for 2021.  This is the fifth year in a row TAL has taken out the title.

The runners up for the Life Company of the Year were:

• MetLife
• NEOS Life
• PPS Mutual

AFA President, Sam Perera, said, “The AFA congratulates TAL Life on winning the platinum award, and all the winners and finalists of individual awards, who continue to support and innovate within the life insurance sector. Most important is the ongoing role they play in providing certainty and security to millions of Australians, which has never been more important than today.”

The categories for the Awards include the overall Platinum AFA Life Company of the Year Award and individual product awards, offered in conjunction with Plan For Life, and the Client Service Team Awards with the Beddoes Institute.

The Overall and Product Life Company of the Year Awards

The overall award and product awards are based around Plan For Life’s Risk Products Benchmarking services, which benchmarks retail life insurers across five key metrics: financial strength, market share based on sales and growth over three years, product feature strength based on a review of over 90 product features and definitions, service quality and premium rate comparisons across a wide range of ages and sums assured. Sustainability of the product and its operations is also included, as well as innovation in product.

Rael Solomon, Regional Managing Director, Plan For Life, said, “2021 saw a return to positive new business growth (new sales and policy increases), with lump sum growing by 8.8% and income protection by 20.6% over the 12 months to 30 September. New life insurers who recently commenced sales have had an impact and are amongst those included in the awards. The general improvement in the life insurance market augurs well for 2022.”

The Client Service Team Awards

The Client Service Team Awards, which recognise outstanding underwriting, claims and BDM teams, are based on feedback from advisers surveyed through the Beddoes Institute’s Adviser Experience Benchmarking Study.

In the Client Service Team Awards, NEOS Life was announced Underwriting Team of the Year and also took out the BDM Team of the Year, whilst AIA Australia won Claims Team of the Year.

Bill Nikolovski, CEO, Beddoes Institute, said,“We have seen the smaller life insurance companies gain substantial traction in the marketplace recently, and it is clear why, when all the top performing insurers in the key touchpoints of Underwriting and Business Support were smaller companies. Congratulations to NEOS Life on taking out the Underwriting and Business Support Awards. Claims is at the heart of life insurance, and we congratulate AIA on winning the award this year.”

The full list of Winners and Runners-up are: