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.

There’s a lot going on in the life insurance industry around price increases, brought on by a change in tax legislation. Pinnacle Life made several comments (see Good Returns and Stuff) about insurers unjustifiably raising premiums for their existing policyholders and we’ll stand by that.

The nub of the issue is that we have new tax legislation in NZ specifically for life insurance companies, as mentioned in a previous post. The new legislation effectively increases company tax on life insurance policies sold after 1 July 2010.

But what about policyholders that already have a life insurance policy today? Is there an increase in company tax for these policies?

The simple answer is “no”.  The new tax legislation protects existing policyholders by effectively waiving increased tax on these policies for a period of 5 years. For what it’s worth, the concept has been termed ‘grandfathering’.

So why are some insurers increasing premiums for their existing life insurance customers? After all, there’s no added cost related to these policies so we’ve questioned the logic.

And who’s standing up for these existing customers?

We also wonder what the IRD will make of all this given their extraordinary effort to avoid this happening.

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…?

 Ever wondered why insurance documents can’t be written in plain, simple, non-legal English?

Well actually… they can!  

Last week, Pinnacle Life won the New Zealand 2009 Best Plain English Document Award (Private Sector).

This award was presented in Wellington at the Plain English Awards run by WriteMark New Zealand.

Pinnacle Life won this award for its life insurance policy document described by judges as “clear, sophisticated” and “as good as it gets”.

Not only was Pinnacle Life a winner in the best document category, but the Pinnacle Life website was a finalist in the “Plain English Website Awards”.

So… no need to put up with insurance jargon any longer or wrestle with legal English… just go online and see for yourself why Pinnacle Life is not your regular, old fashioned, overpriced life insurance company.

And here’s the highlight… Kerry Vaughan (Marketing Manager Pinnacle Life) picking up the trophy presented in Wellington.

PINNACLE LIFE today claimed another world first… Serious Illness Cover… now available as a fully underwritten product instantly online.    

Serious Illness Cover is a straightforward insurance policy that pays a cash lump sum if the insured person suffers a defined serious illness condition.   

The four serious illness conditions covered under PINNACLE LIFE’s new product are heart attack, cancer, stroke and heart bypass surgery. 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 rules-based underwriting is fully supported by reinsurance giant Hannover Life Re of Australasia.    

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

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

Buying a Serious Illness policy 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… Good Returns, Scoop

It’s not every tyre company that sells life insurance, is it? 

“With tyres being a huge safety component of the vehicle, I thought it would be a nice fit”, says Steve. “Besides, those old, worn-out life insurance companies badly need a retread and I’m the man for the job”.  

These are the words of Steve Lange, senior executive of Tony’s Tyre Service, the tyre company that recently launched Tony’s Tyres for Life, a brand of life insurance offered direct to consumers on-line.   

Click here for the story.  

Clearly it takes true entrepreneurship to pull something like this off.  Congrats to Steve Lange and his team for getting this online life insurance venture off the ground. Gotta be good for consumers, especially the ones that drive carsJ… 

The online insurance products offered to customers of Tony’s Tyres are insured by Pinnacle Life, the pioneer of online life insurance in New Zealand.    

The story broke in the mainstream media last week. Read the story here in the Dominion Post and here in the National Business Review. 

Pinnacle Life was today named supreme winner of the US-based ‘2008 INNovator of the Year’ award.  

This award is the highest accolade for technology innovation within the insurance industry.  

The award recognised Pinnacle Life’s instant insurance website www.pinnaclelife.co.nz, a world-first e-commerce website which pioneered electronic underwriting, offering consumers immediate online life insurance cover. The proposition is backed by global giant Hannover Life Re whose Australian underwriting team contributed to the rule-development of the electronic underwriting engine. 

The INNovators awards are organised by the Chicago-based Insurance Networking News (INN), the leading technology publication for the global insurance industry with a global readership of 58,000. 

Pinnacle Life was the only non-US company to make the top twenty list of finalists, which included giants such as AIG, Allianz Life, AON, and Warren Buffet’s company GEICO.  

Winners are determined by a panel of expert judges who recognised Pinnacle Life as the only finalist whose innovation directly benefited the customer, rather than merely delivering cost savings to the insurance provider.  

Pinnacle Life launched its website in May 2007, making it the first life insurance provider anywhere in the world to deliver immediate, fully underwritten online cover to consumers. Pinnacle Life set out to target an emerging life insurance market amongst internet-savvy consumers and has enjoyed significant growth since it launched instant life insurance online.  

The technology behind Pinnacle Life’s success is provided by Intelligent Life.   

Read more in…. 

• Insurance Networking News announcement
• Sourcemedia  
• NZ Herald
• Good Returns
• Computerworld
• Scoop  
• CIO
• National Business Review  
• Market Watch 

Pinnacle Life has won an international IMA Award for the design and implementation of its online life insurance website www.pinnaclelife.co.nz.

The IMA recognise the highest standards of excellence in website design and development by companies and individuals for outstanding achievement. Sponsored by New York-based IMA Inc., an organisation comprising leading international web designers, marketers and other web-related professionals, the competition seeks to elevate the standards of excellence on the Internet. Visit http://www.interactivemediaawards.com.

Pinnacle Life’s world-first website was launched in May last year offering qualified consumers the ability to get a life insurance policy entirely online – using ‘electronic underwriting’ with no human involvement in the process. Pinnacle Life partner Steve de Jong says “It’s an honour to have our hard work recognised by the IMA. We feel strongly that we have a world-class website and this award helps validate that.”

The IMA honour received by Pinnacle Life recognises that the website surpassed the standards of excellence that comprise the web’s most professional work. The judging consisted of various criteria including design, usability, innovation, features and content. In order to win this award, the site had to meet strict guidelines in each area – an achievement only a fraction of sites in the IMA competition earn each year. Read the story in Scoop

Pinnacle Life has increased its electronic underwriting limits by 60%, enabling it to now offer life cover up to $800,000 instantly online.

See full story on Good Returns…

The launch of our electronic underwriting was announced in Scoop earlier this week.

Scoop: Wednesday, 14 November 2007

Pinnacle Life today launched a next generation version of its electronic underwriting that should see a higher number of first-time applicants issued with immediate life cover. 

See the full story in Scoop…