Starting a new life
insurance company from scratch is a big step and one two New
Zealanders, Naomi Ballantyne and Richard Coon, have just taken with
the founding of Partners Life. The new insurer officially opens for
business in March this year.
Commenting on the bold
decision to establish Partners Life, Ballantyne said: “We’ve
followed the situation closely for some time and just felt that we
could do something different. Our approach has been to work
collaboratively with local financial advisors to create the next
generation of products that will protect New Zealand
families.”
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Ballantyne will serve as MD
of Partners Life and Coon as financial director. Former CEO of
Prudential New Zealand, Boyd Klap, has been appointed as
chairman.
Expanding on the rationale
for Partners Life’s establishment, sales and marketing director
Pauline Prescott commented: “The New Zealand market is currently
dominated by large international banks, leaving a gap for a new
entrant to step in and really drive innovation for the good of the
client.”
She added that as part of
Partners Life’s strategy, a significant attraction for consumers is
that they will be rewarded with a loyalty bonus in the form of
premium reductions over time.
Initially, Partners Life will
offer life insurance, income protection, medical insurance,
disability insurance and trauma cover.
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By GlobalDataAs a technology platform,
Partners Life has selected Sonata, a solution from Bravura
Solutions, an Australian financial technology developer. The Sonata
platform will cover all aspects of the policy lifecycle from new
business to claims processing.
Ballantyne comes with a
formidable background in insurance, including having played a major
role in the building up of New Zealand’s largest life insurer
Sovereign Life, where she worked from the time of its founding in
1989 until its acquisition in 1999 by New Zealand bank ASB Group, a
unit of Commonwealth Bank of Australia. She was Sovereign’s chief
operating officer at the time of her departure.
Ballantyne went on to
reputedly become the first woman in the world to found her own life
assurance company, Club Life. Club Life began operations in July
2001, and in early 2004 was acquired by Dutch insurer ING Group
which re-branded the company ING Life Australia (ILA).
Ballantyne resigned as the
CEO of ILA in mid-2009, just ahead of ING’s sale of its 51% stake
in ILA, in November 2009, to its joint venture partner Australia
and New Zealand Banking Group for €1.1bn ($1.5bn). The company,
then Australia’s fifth-largest life insurers, was subsequently
renamed Onepath Life.
In early-2010, Ballantayne
continued to build on her reputation as a serial insurance
entrepreneur when she established an insurance brokerage in New
Zealand, Us Advice. Ballantayne and Coon announced in December 2010
that they were to establish Partners Life.
No stranger to the world of
entrepreneurship either, Coon was the founder of New Zealand home
equity release company Sentinel. Sentinel is also the founding
company of Seniors Money International which provides equity
release products in Australia, Ireland, Canada and South
Africa.
Life Partners will be taking
on major players in New Zealand’s life market such as AMP, Axa,
Sovereign and Onepath.
Beyond Ballantayne’s track
record, the new insurer has in its favour an underinsured
market.
According to Swiss Re, premium income of NZ$1.7bn
($1.33bn) in 2009 represented penetration of a mere 0.9% of GDP in
2009. This compared with a penetration rate of 4.8% of GDP for
general insurance and a life insurance penetration rate of 3.4% of
GDP in Australia.
