Major insurer MetLife is looking to determine whether there has been any improvement in superannuation fund members’ understanding of insurance inside superannuation over the past 12 months.
Research undertaken on behalf of MetLife in 2017 revealed the degree to which superannuation fund members did not understand the insurance they received within superannuation and whether they were actually covered.
The research, released by MetLife’s head of group insurance, James Carey, has come in the wake of the final report of the Productivity Commission (PC) report into superannuation competitiveness and efficiency which maintained the call for significant changes for younger members and those with low account balances.
Carey referred to research undertaken for MetLife in 2017 involving face-to-face in-depth interviews together with an online survey of more than 1,500 members of the public.
He pointed out that the research had revealed that while 74 per cent of respondents were aware they could get insurance through superannuation, only 54 per cent claimed to have such insurance and that two in three did not know how to calculate how much life insurance cover they needed.
The survey also revealed that one in three of respondents did not know how much insurance cover they had within superannuation, and four in 10 were not aware that they could modify that amount.
Carey said the results had prompted MetLife to develop a strategy under which it worked with super fund clients to better target members and lift their awareness with a further study having been conducted late last year to determine what had changed.
