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Service standards strong during August

We reported in our July issue of Adviser Connect that we had made progress during the second quarter of this year, and with planned adjustments during July, we anticipated moving our service standards to where we want them to be.  

We’re pleased to share that our service standards for August are looking strong across both our call centre and operations.   

Call Centre  

This year, our call centre initiated a collaborative framework to coordinate our engagement specialists based on call type and complexity. This approach not only enhances our ability to handle call and chat volumes but also ensures that calls are routed to the appropriate knowledge base.   

In July, we moved some of our up-skilled staff from the Simple Insurance tier (or queue) to bolster the support provided to complex insurance and super & investments queries. This has improved our call wait times - for the first two weeks of August, our performance was below or close to our target average wait time of 3 minutes.  

August 2023 (first two weeks) – Average wait time for calls - across Australasia   

Service Tier  

Average wait time (minutes)  

Simple Insurance  

2 minutes and 12 seconds  

Complex Insurance  

3 minutes and 33 seconds  

Super & Investments  

2 minutes and 30 seconds  

*Combined for both advisers and customers  

Operations  

In addition to the making improvements to our call centre, we’ve focused on streamlining our administrative processes and implementing automation to improve our speed and capacity.   

Transaction Backlog - August saw us clear our insurance transactions backlog. We’ve reduced the backlog for super & investments by 65% since the start of 2023 and are on track to clear it by the end of the quarter.  

New transaction processing - We’re happy to report that we met our service standard (85%*) for most transaction types during the first two weeks of August. The only exception was non-financial transactions for super & investments – but that’s improving, and we should reach our target during this quarter.  

August 2023 (first two weeks) – Transaction Services Standards – across Australasia  

Transaction Type  

Service Standards*  

Insurance  

Super & Investments  

Financial   

86%  

86%  

Non-financial  

86%  

74%  

*Service Standard – percentage of transaction processed within days: Financial, 3 Days; Non-financial, 5 Days.  

Supporting customer needs with our expanded product range

 As you know, on 1 July 2023, Resolution Life Australasia Limited (Resolution Life) began its next phase of strategic growth when it acquired AIA Australia Limited's (AIAA) Superannuation and Investment life insurance business. 

Information for former AIAA policyholders and advisers is now available at resolutionlife.com.au/aia.  

From 1 July 2023, the Lifestream Guaranteed Income Annuities and Investment Growth Bond are issued by Resolution Life and are now available for you and your customers.  

  • Lifestream Guaranteed Income Annuities: 
    • Short-term and long-term guaranteed income 
    • Bonus rates for larger investments 
    • Issued out of our Statutory Fund No. 1. 

 

  • Investment Growth Bond:  
    • An award-winning product –The Association of Financial Adviser (AFA) Investment Bond Award 15 years running (2008 through to 2022) and AFA Investment Bond Excellence Award for 2020, 2021 and 2022 
    • Investment Option Guarantees – available on four of the nine investment options, which are designed to provide certainly around the minimum value of the investment.  The nature of the guarantee differs across the NC-Cash, NC-Global Fixed Income, NC-Diversified and NC-Conservative investment options 
    • Death Benefit Guarantee – provides certainty on the minimum amount that would be paid on death, of the last surviving life insured. 

Providing specialist retirement and investment support to you, we’d like to introduce you to our Retirement Business Development Managers: 

  • Simon Felice – with more than 20 years’ experience in financial services, Simon has held a number of positions with other fund managers and insurance providers and now Resolution Life. Simon brings with him a passion for and solid experience in retirement financial products, particularly annuities and investment growth bonds.  
     
  • Vijay Mathew – with more than 24 years’ experience in financial services, Vijay has held a number of roles including Business Development Manager with other fund managers and insurance providers and now Resolution Life. He has a deep understanding of the financial planning industry as well as an in-depth knowledge of the benefits of annuities and investment growth bonds. 

Find out more about our products online, and if you’d like to access our weekly Annuity rates information, please go to our website, click on the ‘view this week’s annuity rates’ link and bookmark the link for easy future access. 

Both Simon and Vijay would welcome the opportunity to meet and discuss any opportunity in relation to these products. If you would like more information, please reach out via the website at resolutionlife.com.au/aia or contact Simon and Vijay directly: 

NSW/ACT/SA/WA/NT 

Simon Felice 

0416 037 066 

Simon.felice@aia.com

QLD/VIC/TAS 

Vijay Mathew 

0475 955 323 

vijay.mathew@aia.com 

My Resolution Life fixes – August summary

 We’ve rounded up the latest changes we’ve made to My Resolution Life below. 

Some of the changes below will require you to search for the customer policy and access Customer View in My Resolution Life. If you need help with searching for your customers, visit the My Resolution Life help centre

What’s different?  

Where will you or customers see this in My Resolution Life?  

When you or customers update their address, the following fields must now be completed before hitting submit:  

  • Address  
  • Suburb  
  • State and   
  • Postcode  

This ensures we have all the details we need from you or customers to efficiently update the address on record.  

 

To update the customer’s address:  

1. Login to My Resolution Life, and search for the customer policy to access Customer View.   

2. Once in Customer View, on the left-hand side menu, select My profile > Address details.   

3. Simply complete the form and all mandatory fields and select Update.  

 

When viewing a customer’s policy information, the customer names are now displayed against the benefits in the Insurance details section.  

This will make it easier for you and customers to know which benefit applies to which person on a policy, especially when there is more than one life insured.  

 

1. Login to My Resolution Life, and search for the customer policy to access Customer View.   

2. Once in Customer View, scroll down and click on Insurance details to expand the tab. You’ll have the below view, as an example:  

You can now view a list of the policies you recently accessed, without having to search for them again.  

1. Once you have logged in to My Resolution Life, under Customer Search, select Recently Accessed Policies.  

2. You’ll be taken to a page with a list of policies you previously accessed:  

When updating beneficiary details in My Resolution Life for certain policies, a pop-up now appears to clarify that previous updates to beneficiary details will not be reflected in the portal.  

Please note, this does not impact you or your customers’ ability to update beneficiary details. Complete the form as per usual, and it will be submitted to us to action.   

To update beneficiary details for a customer’s policy:  

1. Login to My Resolution Life, and search for the customer policy to access Customer View.   

2. Once in Customer View, on the left-hand side menu, select My profile > Beneficiary details.   

3. The new pop-up will appear. Simply select OK and follow the prompts to proceed with updating the beneficiary details. 

When submitting the Contact Us form in the portal, you’ll immediately see an error notification if we cannot accept the file type that you’ve attached to your request.  

Ensuring you attach acceptable file types to your request helps us in processing your request efficiently.  

Please note, we can only accept the following file types: .jpg, .tiff, .PNG or PDF. For security purposes, we can’t accept .docx or .doc.   

To access the Contact Us form:  

1. Login to My Resolution Life, and search for the customer policy to access Customer View.   

2. Once in Customer View, on the left-hand side menu, select Help and Support > General enquiry. If you complete the form and attach an unacceptable file type, you’ll see this error message: 

Policies with the new pop-up when updating beneficiary details

 

The following policies are impacted by the beneficiary details update. 

Accidental Death Benefit 

Annual Renewable Term Plan 

Business Whole of Life Plan 

Defined Period Lifestyle Protection Plan 

Defined Period Premier Lifestyle Protection Plan 

Endowment Plan 

Flexible Security Plan 

Investment Only Lifestyle Protection Plan 

Investment Only Premier Lifestyle Protection Plan 

Level Life Insurance Plan 

Level Life Insurance Superannuation Plan 

Non Participating Plan 

Open Ended Lifestyle Protection Plan 

Open Ended Premier Lifestyle Protection Plan 

Open Ended Premier Plus Lifestyle Protection Plan 

Permanent Life Plan 

Premier Plus Lifestyle Protection Plan 

Retirement Security Plan 

Stand-Alone Trauma Plan 

Step Term Insurance 

Stepped Life Insurance Plan 

Stepped Life Insurance Superannuation Plan 

Superannuation Annual Renewable Term Plan 

Term Insurance Level Premium 

Term Joint Life Insurance 

Term Life Insurance Plan 

Term Life Insurance-Decreasing Sum Insured 

Whole of Life Plan 

Missed payment report – now fixed and available

 We have addressed the display and download issues that some advisers were having with the missed payment report in My Resolution Life. You can now access and download missed payment reporting online again. We apologise for the inconvenience this has caused. 

How to access the report  

Login to My Resolution Life and click on Missed payment report from your dashboard.  

 

Your staff can access this report too. If you haven’t yet set up access for your staff, see instructions in the My Resolution Life help centre here.  


 

Fee reductions for Super & Investments (S&I) products

During 2022, Resolution Life reduced the fees we charge for several Super, Retirement and Investment products following a review and simplification of fee structures and investment offerings.  We have recently finalised a further series of fee reductions for the S&I products that are set out in these tables.   

Impacted National Mutual Retirement Fund (NMRF) members and Resolution Life policyholders will benefit from these fee reductions, which were all implemented by the end of June 2023.  Note that only the products and investment options listed have been impacted.  

The latest fees and costs information for S&I products is available on the relevant product pages found under the Super, Retirement, and Investment pages.  


 

Recent updates to our investment portfolio

We recently undertook a review of our strategic asset allocation investments, resulting in updates to some of our investment options.  

The below changes are effective from 1 July 2023. We are currently writing to customers who are impacted by these changes.  

Diversified portfolio changes  

We've made updates to help simplify our investment options menu and reduce the ongoing costs of managing these portfolios. The diversified portfolios have been consolidated into 6 risk profiles, each with their own objective, standard risk measure (SRM), benchmarks and ranges. Click here to view a flyer detailing all the changes.  

Single sector changes  

We have changed the way we manage some investment options, moving them from passive to moderately active investment management. While these investments will still be largely tied to matching the returns of a particular index, this change will allow us to make some additional investment movements from time to time.   

As a result of this change, we have updated the name for the following investment options:   

Current name  

Updated name  

Australian Share Index  

Australian Share 5  

International Share Index  

International Share 3  

Wholesale Global Equity Index Fund  

Wholesale Global Equity Fund  

Wholesale Global Equity Index Fund Mature  

Wholesale Global Equity Fund Mature  

In addition, we have updated the objective and strategy for the following investment options:  

  • Australian Equities  
  • Australian Share  
  • Australian Share 2  
  • Australian Share 3  
  • Australian Share 4  
  • Australian Share Index   
  • Hedged International Share  
  • International Equities  
  • International Share  
  • International Share 2   
  • International Share Index  
  • Specialist Australian Share   
  • Specialist International Share  
  • Wholesale Global Equity Index Fund  

As part of managing your investments, we regularly monitor the options and underlying managers and make appropriate changes. We were advised that the underlying investment portfolios for your investment option were to be closed. We’ve automatically reinvested the funds into a similar investment with a similar risk/return profile.   

We have updated the name, objective and strategy for the following investment options:  

Current name  

Updated name  

Multi-manager Australian Equities  

Australian Equities 2  

Multi-manager Australian Equities Mature  

Australian Equities 2 Mature  

Multi-manager International Equities  

Specialist International Share  

Multi-manager International Equities Mature  

Specialist International Share Mature  

 

Please refer to the current Investment Report for the updated objective and strategy.

Important information

Any advice and information on this website is general in nature and is provided by Resolution Life Australasia Limited ABN 84 079 300 379, AFSL No. 233671 (Resolution Life), which is part of the Resolution Life Group. Resolution Life can be contacted on 133 731 or via the contact us page. The advice does not take into account your personal objectives, financial situation or needs. Therefore, before acting on the advice, you should consider the appropriateness of the advice, having regard to those matters as well as the relevant product disclosure statement (PDS) or policy document, available from Resolution Life at resolutionlife.com.au or by calling 133 731, before making a decision about the product. Consider speaking to a financial adviser if you have any concerns. 

If you decide to purchase or vary a financial product, Resolution Life and/or other companies within the Resolution Life Group will receive fees and other benefits, which will be a dollar amount or a percentage of either the premium they pay or the value of their investments. You can ask us for more details.