PINNACLE LIFE today claimed another first in NZ… Cancer Cover… now available as a fully underwritten product instantly online.

Cancer Cover, as explained in this Stuff article, is a straightforward insurance policy that pays a cash lump sum if the insured person is diagnosed with cancer… simple as that!

With the purchase of a Cancer Cover policy, Pinnacle Life will donate the first three monthly payments to either the NZ Breast Cancer Foundation or the Prostate Cancer Foundation of NZ (depending on the gender of the person covered by the policy).

Cover up to $250,000 can be purchased immediately online, without a medical.

The policy is applied for and issued online in the same way that existing Life, Mortgage and Funeral products are offered on the PINNACLE LIFE website. The buying process from application to policy issue is fully automated using advanced electronic underwriting software developed by Intelligent Life Limited.  The on-line underwriting is supported by reinsurance giant Hannover Life Re of Australasia.

The entire application process takes less than 10 minutes after which applicants can see a draft version of their personalised policy document before committing themselves.  On payment, consumers are emailed their policy document instantly.

Whilst Cancer Cover is designed essentially for the under-45 consumer, it is available online to anyone aged 20 to 59.

Buying Cancer Cover is now as straightforward as buying an airline ticket… maybe even easier!

Today’s ‘instant serious illness cover’ follows the launch of instant Life Cover, instant Mortgage Cover and instant Funeral Cover by PINNACLE LIFE over the past 18 months.

See also Stuff article here.

Ok, we admit we’ve been rather quiet on this Blog lately.

There’s a lot to catch up on, starting with the fact that Pinnacle Life is now advertising on TV.

If you’re a regular TV watcher, you’ll see the PINNACLE LIFE ads on TV3, Prime and some of the SKY channels.

Here’s the first of three ads, right off YouTube… click here to view

Feel free to let us know what you think…?

In July 2008 Pinnacle Life launched a policy called ‘Funeral Cover’.

Whilst the product is designed essentially for people over 50 (and many insurers call it ’50 Plus Insurance’) it’s available online to anyone aged 30 to 69.

What surprised us is the proportion of people in their 30’s and 40’s that have purchased Funeral Cover - clearly the product’s hitting the mark with Generation C… so to speak!

How does it work?

The entire application process takes around 5 minutes… after which you’ll have a policy covering your funeral for $5k, $10k, $15k or $20k. And the premiums offered for these cover amounts and for this type of product are the lowest in NZ. 

Best of all, being a ‘guaranteed issue’ product, Funeral Cover is offered with no health questions asked, and the policy is emailed to you immediately online.

And not only do the premiums stay the same every year, but once you turn 85, you totally stop paying – and your cover continues free of charge until you, ahem, expire.

And the extra bonus?

Your family will say great things about you at your funeral. See these ads from YouTube…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4FHeVWjGrc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nw0s4C0g5SM

 (It’s ironic that this latter video was the last advertisement directed by a popular Malaysian movie director, Yasmin Ahmad, who died soon afterwards of a stroke aged just 51…)

…just ask Ferrit…

We’re big supporters of online innovation – in our view online services and shopping has a big future in our changing world. So we’re truly sorry to see the demise of Ferrit, the online shopping portal that was established a few years ago by Telecom, one of NZ’s largest companies.

Ferrit’s demise however is typical of large corporations with squillions of dollars and expertise to burn, failing to get their online shopping portals into full flight. Telecom spent a fortune on advertising the Ferrit nerd, to no avail. Why? 

In our humble opinion successful ventures on the internet need to break from the traditional. It’s not about trying to find niche’s. Even Ferrit’s advertising campaign tried to focus on a market segment it “presumed” bought on-line. The strategy of “focusing on medium sized retailers looking to go on-line” is MBA-speak for “I think we found a gap in our competitive analysis grid that we can sell to our Board” Reality check, any retailer, no matter what size can retail on the internet, barriers to entry are low. Shopping basket applications can be found on freeware.

Why are we on about this?

Because the same principles apply to online life insurance companies… those insurers that have simply tried to push their old, complicated, legalistic insurance products online or through online insurance brokers will always struggle. Old products and new distribution channel don’t necessarily mix.

The ‘little guy’ can take heart… deep pockets and top staff alone don’t make for a successful online venture. Profitable web offerings capture the imagination of the consumer in the purchasing process. (Think TradeMe).

It’s a shame about Ferrit though….BTW, Pinnacle Life did try to get onto the Ferrit shopping list again and again, with no success. Seems they were more interested in selling bricks and mortar.

The heading says it all, doesn’t it. But if you want more, read on.  

This NZ Herald article announced a 62%increase in internet banking usage over the past 3 years measured against a 23% reduction in the patronage of bank branches.  

If you think this is just another internet statistic, think again.  It’s a ‘generational shift in consumer behaviour’.  

To be more precise, it’s the collective behaviour of new consumers that no longer have the patience to stand in a queue.  For this generation, ‘face-to-face’ is yesterday’s model. The internet is now the ‘channel of choice’.  

‘Generation C’ is here – those internet-savvy consumers that don’t have time to waste. And whilst they’re typically under 40, this is not a generation based strictly on age like Gen X and Gen Y. Gen C are people of all ages! It’s not an age thing – it’s an attitudinal thing to be Generation C. I regard myself as Gen C and yes… I’d love to be 40 again!  

Gen C consumers expect things to happen quickly and efficiently and they prefer to do their business in their own time and place. An answer to a question is usually only a mouse-click away. Products and services are just mouse clicks away. And if it can’t be done with a mouse… then why bother?  These new consumers are impatient… very impatient. They understand that time is money. They understand that the old model of meeting and greeting costs more and this means they’ll get back less. So they expect – when they do it online – that it will be faster, it will be lower cost and they will save money.   

Our prediction… like internet banking and airline ticketing, life insurance will one day be mostly transacted this way. Obviously we can’t wait.

I was taken aback at a reader’s comment on another blog pertaining to the distribution of life insurance in NZ…  She said;  

“In the end, the public will determine how it accesses [life insurance], but it IS clearly an advice process that they want – as evidenced by the number of “web-based” insurance sales outfits that have come …. and gone.” 

“Clearly advice based”????     “… come and gone”??? 

Gimme a break! Too much for me to ignore, this was my response; 

I’m not sure where you’ve sourced your information regarding how people want to access life insurance products (name withheld), but I need to point out there is an entire generation of young adults in their late twenty’s and thirty’s that are very happy to get online and manage their own affairs. And in the next 10 years we’ll see Gen Y come into the life insurance market and these people have never known life without mobile phones, i-Tunes, Google, chat rooms, internet banking, online ticketing, YouTube, TradeMe… the list goes on. 

For this generation, (sometimes referred to as Generation C) web-based life insurance will be a perfectly natural purchase. The only reason some consumers need advice is because insurance companies have overcomplicated their products and because their old-fashioned distribution methods appeal to older audiences. You underestimate the new, younger, smart, internet-savvy consumer and you overestimate the need for advice at your peril. 

There are several new on-line life insurance websites, some run by brokers and one by a life insurer that are busy gaining momentum and are well placed to ride the new consumer wave. I absolutely agree with your last point though… “In the end, the public will determine how it accesses these products”.

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Pinnacle Life’s online life insurance was headlined “life insurance for the young and trendy” on the blog Mad Young Thing, in reference to our obvious appeal to the internet-savvy Generation C. 

But who exactly is Generation C?  And how do you know if you’re it??

There’s lots of commentary out there (just try a Google search) but apparently no consensus on what the “C” actually stands for – check out the Wikipedia entry and the associated C list.  Not sure about some of them!

The word “content” often comes out a winner – people who produce and share online content, post their photography on the Internet, and publish or comment on blogs. It follows that these will also be the people who are comfortable with and might prefer to buy consumer goods online.

With this in mind, I’d add the “now” generation as a further defining characteristic of Generation C.  OK I’ve cheated, it doesn’t begin with C, but it’s the generation that doesn’t want to have to wait around.  It’s more like “I see a product, I want it, I should be able to buy it immediately and online.”  

That’s what we’re about at Pinnacle Life – cutting out the complexities of insurance and giving consumers what they want at the click of a mouse… plenty of C’s there!

Be interested to know what others think.