BT Financial Group is 2016 AFA/SI Life Company of the Year

BT Financial Group (BT) is the Association of Financial Advisers (AFA) and Strategic Insight (SI) Life Company of the Year for the second year running.

BT, which also took out the income protection award for its BT – Income Protection Plus Plan product, was named Platinum Winner of the AFA/SI Life Company of the Year for 2016 at the sell-out AFA event hosted at the Hilton Sydney last night. The event also raised funds, via the AFA Foundation, for Youth off the Streets.

“The AFA/SI Life Company of the Year Awards are based on independent quantitative research conducted by Strategic Insight, Actuaries and Researchers, resulting from three separate investigations during the year,” said AFA CEO, Brad Fox. “Each life insurer is individually assessed on a range of criteria and then measured against other insurers. In 2016, it was BT that once again ranked ahead of its peers.”TAL, MLC and OnePath were runners up for the Platinum Award.

TAL, MLC and OnePath were runners up for the Platinum Award.

Mr Fox said financial advisers arrange just on half of the life insurance in Australia, and $5B of the total $7.2B in claims is paid to clients of financial advisers. “These Awards are designed to encourage life insurers to invest in product and service innovation and to strive for excellence so that financial advisers can offer their clients the best possible risk protection.”

Rael Solomon, Head of Sales, Marketing and Product Development at Strategic Insight said, “The retail life insurance market continues to be driven by a high level of competition between all life companies, resulting in innovation in not only products, but also in the aspects of underwriting, customer service and adviser training. Health and wellness has become a major theme and is already playing a part in the benchmarking which Strategic Insight applies to providers and their products.”

The AFA also announced Zurich as the winner of two of the three AFA/Beddoes Institute/riskinfo Client Service Team Awards, including the Underwriting Award and the BDM/Business Support Awards. BT won the Claims Award.

The Client Service Team Awards are based on nearly 2000 ratings in an extensive survey of advisers conducted by the Beddoes Institute in collaboration with riskinfo and the AFA.The Beddoes Institute’s Rebecca Sheils said, “The goal of these awards is to recognise life companies that the Adviser Experience Benchmarking Study identifies as providing exemplary services to advisers.  These awards are timely as this year’s study reveals that advisers are calling for greater business support and better services as they strive to exceed their clients’ expectations and build better businesses.”

The Beddoes Institute’s Rebecca Sheils said, “The goal of these awards is to recognise life companies that the Adviser Experience Benchmarking Study identifies as providing exemplary services to advisers.  These awards are timely as this year’s study reveals that advisers are calling for greater business support and better services as they strive to exceed their clients’ expectations and build better businesses.”The AFA/SI Life Company of the Year event raised funds on the night for Youth off the Streets, a non-denominational community

The AFA/SI Life Company of the Year event raised funds on the night for Youth off the Streets, a non-denominational community organisation working for disadvantaged young people who may be homeless, drug dependent and/or recovering from abuse.

See the complete list of winners and finalists.