Andrew Beevors

MLC Life Insurance and TelstraSuper are joining forces to pilot a new awareness program prompting members to check their eligibility for early cancer screening tests.

Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, thousands of Australians have delayed or deferred taking these important tests because of restrictions on social movement and access to health services.

According to figures from Cancer Australia, there were 163,595 fewer diagnostic procedures, such as scans or biopsies, carried out for 14 common cancers, such as breast, kidney, ovarian and cervical cancer in 2020 alone.

Currently, only half of Australians eligible for free cancer checks – such as breast cancer, bowel cancer and cervical cancer – take them up. Because cancer can take a long time to develop, screening tests can detect cancer while it is still in its early stages and therefore more likely to be effectively treated.

Provided free of charge to TelstraSuper members, Aware by CancerAid asks a series of health questions to help them understand which lifestyle habits increase cancer risk and provides recommendations to change health behaviour if required. The questions were created by the doctors, coaches and researchers at CancerAid.

Based on the responses to the questions, members may be offered a free information session with a GP, as well as advice and government resources on how to reduce their risk of cancer through activities such as exercise, diet changes, smoking cessation programs and skin checks.

Chris Davies, CEO of TelstraSuper, said the time is now for Australians to get back on track with health checks.

“The ongoing coronavirus restrictions have caused many of us to put off taking screening tests for some of the most common cancers. Tragically, this will likely lead to many cancer diagnoses being missed early, impacting the potential for a successful health outcome.

Through this pilot, we want to encourage our members to understand how to reduce their cancer risk and to check their eligibility for free screening services. We hope that his program helps save lives and are pleased to be partnering with MLC Life Insurance and CancerAid to increase the number of our members accessing screenings, which is one of the most effective ways to detect the early signs of cancer.”

According to Cancer Australia, more than 150,000 Australians were diagnosed with cancer in 2021.

Andrew Beevors, Chief Claims Officer, MLC Life Insurance, says that any proactive intervention from funds and insurers in the health of members can make a difference.

“We see the impact of cancer daily in the claims we pay to members and their families. When it comes to cancer, early detection and intervention is key to better health outcomes.

“We know the enormous emotional and physical toll a cancer diagnosis can have, which is why we invest in programs that support people with cancer, such as CancerAid.”

Through its longstanding relationship with CancerAid, MLC Life Insurance offers all members with a cancer diagnosis free access to the CancerAid Coach Program, a digitally enabled course that guides customers through cancer treatment. It brings together the individualised attention of professional health coaches, a smartphone app along with a researched curriculum and manageable goals.

The program is offered in conjunction with access to the CancerAid App, which organises medical records and streamlines information on appointments, treatments, and specialists. It gives patients and caregivers medically reliable information about their illness and treatment plan, a symptom monitoring tool and access to a supportive community of patients and carers.

TelstraSuper is a leading profit-to-member super fund, representing current and former Telstra Group employees and associated employers as well as their friends and families. It has approximately $25 billion in funds under management.

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The recent JBWere/Investment Trends SMA Report 2015 highlighted the increasing use of SMAs, with one in five financial advisers now using an SMA for a portion of their clients’ investments. The launch of the Antares Listed Property, JBWere Listed Fixed Income and Redpoint Industrials options have increased MLC’s SMA suite to 15 portfolios, ranging from investments in Australian equities, listed property and fixed income.

MLC General Manager Retail Wealth Platforms Kathy Vincent said, “MLC has a long association with SMAs in Australia. Since we launched our SMA offering in 2009, we’ve seen an exponential increase in investor demand and market growth for SMAs and have carefully chosen additional portfolios to meet this evolving need.”

“The early signs from our three new products support the view that advisers are increasingly turning to the SMA market. In a low yield environment it is important for advisers – and investors – to have a variety of income-focused investment options.

“We’re committed to providing financial advisers with innovative investment solutions that can form part of their clients’ overall investment, super or pension portfolios.”

MLC’s SMA offerings are fully integrated into the MLC Wrap and MLC Navigator platforms. This means advisers can easily manage their client’s SMA portfolios in the same way as managed funds and shares, further increasing efficiency for advisers and their clients.

New SMA model portfolios

Antares Listed Property – is an actively managed, concentrated portfolio of Australian property and property related securities. It aims to provide investors with diversification and long term capital growth and income aligned to the Australian property sector.

JBWere Listed Fixed Income – offers clients a well-researched, transparent and defensive listed fixed income portfolio. Its aim is to ensure capital preservation, low capital volatility and a stable and secure income. This SMA invests in ASX-listed securities including corporate bonds and government bonds, select hybrids and convertible notes.

Redpoint Industrials – is a relatively passive, low-cost and diversified industrials-only equity portfolio which aims to capture the key growth and income characteristics of larger industrial companies listed on the ASX.

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Redpoint will manage the global shares strategy within the popular, lower cost MLC Index Plus portfolios and will also manage a currency overlay strategy as part of the overall mandate.

Redpoint CEO Tim Batho said: “We are delighted to be awarded this significant mandate from MLC. This is another clear demonstration of Redpoint’s investment management capabilities and our focus on designing and delivering investment strategies across developed and emerging equity markets.”

Rather than simple index replication, Redpoint’s index management approach uses a range of strategies designed to enhance returns while capturing the risk characteristics of the chosen index.  Redpoint’s managed turnover approach helps reduce the impact of transaction costs and taxation.

MLC Global Equities Portfolio Manager Myooran Mahalingam said: “We’re pleased to have appointed Redpoint to manage the global shares strategy in MLC Index Plus given the quality and experience of the investment team, which is led by Chief Investment Officer, Eric Smith.

“Their mandate will give investors exposure to a much wider range of share market opportunities, including those in fast-growing emerging markets.”

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Kathy joined MLC in 2012 with more than 20 years of financial services experience. She has led MLC’s Retail Investment Platforms strategy team since 2012, having previously worked in roles involving product strategy, development and management for retail investors across a breadth of products including cash, online trading, managed investments, direct investing and investment platforms.

As General Manager for Retail Wealth platforms, Kathy will lead a team responsible for managing and developing products that sit on the MLC Wrap, MLC Navigator and MLC MasterKey platforms, representing over 350,000 investors and $60 billion in Funds Under Management (FUM).

Executive General Manager David Hackett said, “We’re delighted to appoint Kathy to this fundamental leadership role. Kathy is a strong leader with a deep understanding of the retail wealth industry. Her track record in this area is exceptional and we’re very excited to have her level of expertise in our business.

“MLC is committed to helping our customers build their wealth and save their retirement. Kathy will lead a team focussed on this commitment at a time of great growth and opportunity for our customers.”

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Andrew Hagger

MLC has launched the latest wave of its pioneering ‘Save Retirement’ campaign to drive a national conversation about how Australians can bridge the trillion dollar retirement savings gap and secure their future.

In recognition of the crucial role financial advisers’ play in building the wealth of Australians, MLC has developed a campaign targeted to advisers encouraging them to become retirement conservationists and help save their client’s retirement.

The adviser campaign is rolling out across national trade press, while a major national consumer advertising campaign will continue the call to save retirement across TV, print and digital channels.

Why we need to save retirement:

• One in two Australians are set to outlive their retirement savings by more than a decade;
• The average super balance for those aged 60-64 is $115,400, despite a retiree today requiring at least $430,000 for a comfortable retirement; and
• On average, 60% of our retirement income is generated after we retire.

NAB Wealth Group Executive Andrew Hagger said: “We’re committed to being the champions of retirement and partnering with Australians to secure their future.”

“Trusted and quality financial advice is critical to ensuring Australians live comfortably in retirement, and ensuring their savings grow with inflation, manage risk and remain tax efficient.

“We know people who receive formal financial advice save more than those who don’t, resulting in a $91,000 increase in their retirement savings at age 65 if they receive sound advice and plan early.

“Advisers are front and centre of the challenge to ensure Australians meet their financial goals and we’re proud of the role our advisers are playing in helping Australians to plan for and save their retirement.”

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The changes are part of MLC’s continuous assessments of its multi-manager strategies and are designed to further align the manager arrangements with the objectives of each fund.

Peter Sumner, MLC Investment Management’s Australian equities Portfolio Manager said, “Previously we have managed the Australian equities component of the Horizon portfolios and our Australian share sector fund as a single strategy. Both strategies employed the same managers with the same mandates.

“Going forward we believe clients’ interests will be better served by separating these strategies. The diversified funds and the sector fund play separate roles within a client’s portfolio and clients want different things from each of them. We therefore believe it is appropriate to separate the strategies, allowing them to respond independently to changing market conditions.

“Both strategies will retain their access to a suite of high calibre Australian equities active managers and will benefit from cost and tax efficiencies that MLC is able to achieve.”

As part of the strategy changes MLC Investment Management has terminated the mandates of Lazard Asset Management and Contango Asset Management. No new managers are being appointed and the portfolios have been reweighted across the remaining eight managers.

“While both the diversified funds’ strategy and the sector fund’s strategy will initially employ the same managers, the manager allocations for the two strategies and some manager mandates differ,” added Sumner.

Under the new arrangements each strategy will have the flexibility to make independent manager appointments, manager weightings and mandates as required.

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