Asteron Life’s upcoming trauma enhancements based on customer experiences

23 September 2021

Asteron Life’s upcoming updates to its trauma policy reflect its focus on customer outcomes, and its commitment to listening and responding to customer feedback wherever possible. 

Robyn Bartlett, Product Manager at Asteron Life, said that one example is the upcoming change to its cover for cerebral aneurysm, which was based on feedback from a customer.  

“We recently received feedback from a customer who had made a claim for a cerebral aneurysm that had a significant impact on their life, and was only entitled to a partial trauma payment rather than their full trauma benefit,” she says. 

“Their experience was a really compelling basis for us to review how we approached aneurysm, and make changes to the product.” 

Royden Shotter of Echelon Advisers, who advised the customer, was happy that he and Asteron Life could have such a positive impact on the customer’s life. 

“It was a very real opportunity to take a human perspective, and work with Asteron Life to suggest policy wording changes that will have genuine value,” he says. He supported the customer to give feedback to Asteron and to help address her goal of ensuring the wording was improved for any patients who had a similar experience in the future. 

Bartlett said that Asteron Life’s product team welcomed adviser and customer feedback that showed them how their products supported customers in practice, and that those experiences did sometimes provide opportunities for change. 

It has announced upcoming changes to its trauma definitions for seven conditions, with several being driven by claims experiences of its customers. 

“Trauma products can’t cover every possible condition, or they become too expensive and out of reach for too many New Zealanders,” she says. “But in this instance we could see that our customer’s experience was very similar to other conditions that we do cover, and we could envisage that this might affect other customers in future as well.” 

“We listened to that feedback and worked with our reinsurers to update our cover to ensure a good outcome for customers who experience similar events in the future.” 

Bartlett says that the key to creating trauma cover that provides value to customers is to ensure the product is based on genuine, widespread need, while ensuring that cover remained as affordable and accessible as possible. 

“One of the best ways to ensure that our products truly support our customers in their lives is through listening to customers and advisers’ feedback and experiences, and we’re proud to be able to share examples of our commitment in action.” 

The change to the definition will be passed back to applicable in-force policies sold since 2004. Changes to some of its trauma definitions are part of a suite of product enhancements that will be shared in Asteron Life’s upcoming adviser webinar series. 

The enhancements take effect at the end of September.