Life insurance specialist TAL has welcomed the Australian Government’s focus on rationalising legacy life insurance products in the Federal Budget, as well as additional funding for mental health.
TAL said life insurance existed to provide support to people during what were often their most difficult times, and it welcomed the initiatives which enabled the firm to provide customers with products and services that continued to be relevant and respond to their needs.
“We strongly support the Government’s plan to develop a streamlined mechanism to transfer life insurance customers from old legacy products to products that better suit our customers’ current circumstances and reflect contemporary community expectations,” it said.
“Moving customers from legacy products to new products with contemporary definitions and features will be of lasting benefit to customers.
“Ultimately it will allow life insurers to focus efforts on the service we provide to our customers for better value and with less complexity.
“We look forward to playing a role alongside Government, regulators and industry to ensure an appropriate mechanism is developed in the best interests of customers.”
It also welcomed the planned increase in support and spending on mental health over the next four years.
Brett Clark, TAL group chief executive and managing director, said: “It is encouraging to see the Government’s commitment to increase support for mental health and to allocate $2.3 billion over the next four years for the National Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Plan, including significant investment into prevention and early intervention initiatives”.
TAL welcomed the focus on prevention and early intervention of mental health services as it aligned with the life insurer’s white paper on ‘Mental Health and Life Insurance’, released in 2020.
TAL have decimated so many super clients with a combination of their legacy products, so called “advisors” who were only in it for the huge commissions, and TALs useless customer service, who knew nothing about these products. I had one enquiry (not a claim – just a question) that took 6 years! – (no, not a typo) to get answered. How TAL have avoided a class action is a miracle.