Damien Mu

Life insurer AIA Australia’s health and wellness program, AIA Vitality, to sponsor Football Federation Australia’s (FFA’s) introductory football program for boys and girls (aged 4 – 11) across Australia

Football Federation Australia (FFA) today announced AIA Vitality as the inaugural naming rights partner of MiniRoos, the football introductory program for boys and girls in Australia.

Vitality is a clinically proven health and wellness program that aims to influence behaviour related to chronic diseases and obesity. The program, offered in Australia by life insurer AIA Australia, helps people to know more about their health, take steps to improve it and be rewarded for doing so. The program uses incentives and rewards, such as discounts on gyms, healthy food, shopping, entertainment and travel purchases, to encourage people to adopt and sustain healthy behaviours.

The partnership between FFA and AIA Vitality will commence officially on 1 January 2015 and is for a two-year period, in the life insurance category, with an option to extend at the end of the term.

FFA CEO David Gallop welcomed AIA Vitality as football’s newest partner and believes the organisation is a good fit to MiniRoos, which will include the launch of a new introductory program, MiniRoos ‘Kick-Off’, to complement the existing modified games club football experience.

“It’s fantastic that AIA Vitality has come on board to support MiniRoos,” said Gallop.

“Next year will see our first national roll-out of AIA Vitality MiniRoos with the new partnership providing funding for development officers in each Member Federation to aide implementation.

“The partnership with AIA Vitality will also provide much needed resources to the thousands of grassroots clubs around the country that will be registering the next generation of potential Socceroos or Matildas.

“I would like to take this opportunity to personally welcome Damien Mu, Chief Executive Officer of AIA Australia and his company to the football family and we look forward to working with him and his team in the future,” concluded Gallop.

AIA Australia’s Damien Mu said he was equally excited about the announcement of this historic new partnership between AIA Vitality and FFA.

“We want all kids to have the best start in life and believe that they have the best chance of developing healthy habits when they’re having fun, making friends and learning in a team environment. That’s what MiniRoos is all about.

“By supporting the next generation of football fans, we can raise awareness of the importance of being healthy – not just for kids but for their parents as well. We see first-hand the impact that poor health can have on the community and on quality of life, so sponsoring MiniRoos is a great way to start to address this.”

The official national launch of AIA Vitality MiniRoos will be held in February 2015 to coincide with the kick-off of the grassroots football season.

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Damien Mu

Connecting bicycles and smoothies with life insurance might seem like a difficult task, but that’s exactly the challenge AIA Australia is giving financial advisers as they take AIA Vitality on a pilot roadshow around Australian shopping centres.

In the last few months, the life insurer has partnered with two financial advisers – Ged Lowe, at Lowe Financial Group and Andy Hills from All Financial Services – to raise awareness of the incentive-based health and wellness program with prospective clients. Interactive kiosks (image attached), including bicycles that blend smoothies as you pedal, were set up in Melbourne’s Westfield Southland and Sydney’s Westfield Warringah to drive consumers to engage with the initiative.

Speaking about the pilot, Ged said that AIA Vitality and the interactive kiosks provide a new way to talk with people about life insurance.

“We’re turning the conversation on its head. We’re saying to people that we can effectively pay them to be healthy through the tangible, immediate benefits that make up the program, like discounts on shopping, travel and insurance premiums. It’s no longer just talking about ‘what cover will you need if things go wrong’, but we’re also talking about ‘helping you to improve your health and you get paid to do it’, which appeals to people’s aspirations rather than fears. This is a step-change for advisers writing risk.”

Since launching to the market in March, AIA Australia has seen a rapid increase in advisers now writing policies with AIA Vitality attached. More than 1 in 4 policies have been written with AIA Vitality since inception, and over 900 advisers have written a life insurance policy with AIA Vitality attached to it. These figures are destined to grow with the program recently expanded to be available on investment platforms.

Chief Executive Officer for AIA Australia, Damien Mu, believes that AIA Vitality is making good progress in changing perceptions about life insurance, both from the customer and adviser perspective.

“As an industry, we constantly hear about the need to improve engagement with life insurance, both to help financial advisers ‘promote it’ but also to make more Australians open ‘to it’. So, we wanted to do something a little different.  We are starting to see AIA Vitality lift engagement of customers in their own life insurance.”

“Our message – Life insurance that pays you to be healthy – is prompting consumers to review their life insurance need which is a positive change for the industry.  The kiosks are a fun and light-hearted way to get people interested in the AIA Vitality program. They can see how it integrates into their daily lives and incentivises them to change their behaviour, and the adviser can latch onto a unique selling point for life insurance in Australia that they’ve not had before.”

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Damien Mu

AIA Australia’s expansion of its Priority Protection insurance range on investment platforms continues, with AIA Vitality available for purchase on PPPI policies from yesterday.

Investors looking to secure life insurance cover will now be able to purchase AIA Vitality on platforms that include Asgard, HUB24, LifeFocus, Personal Choice Private, PowerWrap, Portfolio Care, and netwealth. It will also be available on the IOOF Pursuit platform later this year.

AIA Vitality Is available through financial advisers, and rewards members with points for displaying healthy behaviour, including discounts on shopping, entertainment and travel purchases, and discounts on eligible insurance premiums.

AIA Australia’s Chief Executive Officer, Damien Mu, said the integration of AIA Vitality with PPPI on these platforms will allow more advisers to purchase it through their preferred platform.

“We know that platforms are becoming an increasingly popular business channel for advisers to write risk, so we’ve got to make sure we tailor our products accordingly”, Mr. Mu said. “AIA Vitality has made a huge difference in helping advisers change the conversation around life insurance with their clients and we want to make the program more accessible for them. Platforms will help us do this.”

According to recent statistics from the Investment Trends Planner Risk Report for June 2014, the proportion of risk written on platforms has remained steady over the last 12 months at 38% and is expected to remain steady into 2015. Looking forward, 80% of planners say they intend to use platforms for risk in the next 12 months[1]. Platforms help advisers to streamline their administrative and compliance requirements when writing risk products, and offer a more competitive range of insurance products to complement their client’s investments.

Matt Heine, Executive Director at netwealth Investment Limited, said: “AIA Vitality is unlike any other program in the market at the moment, and we’re confident it will appeal to our advisers and clients. We like the fact that it helps people to improve their health and get rewarded for it, but it also increases their overall engagement with life insurance and superannuation.”

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