If your customer is experiencing affordability challenges, there are options within AIA Australia’s offering that your clients could consider to help reduce the cost of premiums.
Changes to policy
Premium relief options
AIA product options
AIA Vitality is a great way to support your customers to be mentally and physically healthy in this tumultuous time.
If AIA Vitality is attached to a Priority Protection policy, an initial discount will be applied to the premium (but not the policy fee) as follows:
- Lump sum – 17.5%^
- Income Protection (IP) / Business Expenses – 7.5%
Please note that AIA Vitality involves a membership fee of either:
- $11.50 a month GST inclusive,
- $69 per half year GST inclusive, or
$138 a year GST inclusive.
Your clients can consider a change in ownership and hold their policy inside superannuation so they can fund premiums from their superannuation balance rather than personal cash flow.
Removal of CPI increases from your client’s policy. The client may also decline their annual CPI increase as a once off, automatically resuming in subsequent years.
Decrease cover for a limited period of time. Upon resumption of full cover, within six months, your client would be only required to submit a quote and a Declaration of Good Health and COVID questionnaire. After the six-month period, an application for increase would be required in addition to a new quote. Note: This offer is not automatically applied to all decreases, please contact us to request this offer.*
^The 17.5% discount is only available for new applications which include an AIA Vitality membership. When a new AIA Vitality membership is added to an existing policy, only a 12.5% discounts applies.
*Offer valid until 31 December 2020
If your client needs more immediate, short term relief, there are several premium relief options that AIA Australia can offer your clients:
A client who is behind on payments may enter into a payment plan arrangement to catch up on arrears in fortnightly instalments for up to 12 weeks.
Our grace period before a policy lapses due to non-payment of premiums is normally 60 days. We can now extend this to 90 days upon request.*
For Priority Protection IP policies issued from December 2015 onwards, your clients may be eligible for a premium waiver if they are made redundant.
Your client can consider pausing their policy for three months, which will mean they will not pay premiums for this period. During this period, your client will not be covered under the terms of their policy and would be unable to claim for any claimable event that occurred within these three months.
- As your client will not be required to make any payment during the three-month suspension, as an adviser you will not receive any commission payments during this time.
- After the three-month period is complete, your client’s cover will be automatically reinstated and premium payments will resume. If your client decides to resume their policy before the three-month period is complete, they will be required to submit a Declaration of Good Health.*
*Offer valid until 31 December 2020
AIA Australia also provides various benefits that give your clients flexibility with their cover and future support. These include:
Provides your clients with the option to increase their Life Cover Sum Insured and/or their Income Protection Insured Monthly Benefit following certain events, without supplying further evidence of their health or insurability.
The perfect option for your clients who want to plan ahead. This is a cost-effective way to have the option to increase or add cover in the future when it is needed, and best of all, your clients aren’t required to be medically underwritten at the time of exercising the FUB. This is an option if your customers need to reduce their sum insured to meet affordability for longer than 6 months, but will look to restore cover levels in the future.
This optional benefit was introduced for new policies in December 2019 and recent events have shown how invaluable a benefit like this can be. This provides your clients with a monthly benefit for up to three months to help cover minimum monthly home loan repayments if your client is Involuntarily Unemployed for more than 60 consecutive days. To be eligible, clients must have been employed for at least 180 consecutive days since policy commencement and just prior to becoming Involuntarily Unemployed.