BrightRock celebrates two years of needs-matched life insurance

Since opening for new business in April 2012, BrightRock has written future premiums of R811 million in total, with cover in-force equating to around R51 billion.

Nationwide, more than 2 700 independent financial advisers have signed distribution contracts with BrightRock to date. Month-on-month, the number of activated policies is growing by an average of around 20%.

However, the true measure of a life insurance product’s value is not in its sales but in its performance at claim-stage. Despite modest claims volumes, a function of its relatively recent market entry, BrightRock has already made a number of substantial pay-outs – the largest claim paid to date was a death claim of R16 million.

Says BrightRock’s executive director and main product architect, Schalk Malan: "The industry has sat up and taken notice of us, and we’ve seen some product developments being launched in response, especially in the income protection space. The broker market’s response has been tremendously positive and the client take-up to date has been exceptional.”

BrightRock’s ‘needs-matched’ product design has given consumers the power to co-create a life insurance product suited to their exact needs with their financial adviser. It’s the life insurance equivalent of 3D printing technology, enabling a far greater degree of flexibility and customisation than traditional risk protection products.

BrightRock’s focus is on accurately meeting the policyholders’ needs – not just at the time of sale, but also post-purchase, to ensure the risk solution keeps pace with policyholders’ changing needs.

 

The result is that policyholders enjoy better value and greater long-term certainty. Because each component of the client’s cover tracks the need so precisely, cover is priced far more accurately and efficiently, enabling an average premium saving of 30% from day one.

Malan says that the tremendous demand for cover created by the huge insurance gap (of R24 trillion, according to the latest ASISA industry study) in South Africa, presents a significant opportunity for BrightRock "That’s why we started this business. We knew change was needed and believed we could deliver the kind of consumer-centric product thinking required to help close the gap.”

 

Malan says he and his fellow founders – BrightRock is headed up by Malan and three other founding executive directors, Sean Hanlon, Leopold Malan and Suzanne Stevens – are proud of what’s been achieved to date.

 

"In such a competitive, well-developed insurance market, there are no overnight successes. It takes effort and time for a start-up life insurance enterprise with a totally new technology to establish a strong presence in the market. We’re excited about what the future holds.”

Malan received the 2013 Cover Excellence Award in recognition of BrightRock’s product innovation.

 

• Premium savings of 30% on average, from day one. Because a policyholder’s cover is created to specifically meet their needs for life, there’s no waste in a BrightRock policy. This makes it more efficient and affordable than traditional products in the market;

 

• Needs-matched cover, now and over time. BrightRock’s needs-matched life insurance is the only life cover in the market that precisely tracks the behaviour, growth and duration of each individual financial need over time.

 

• Cover that changes as your life changes. It is easy for BrightRock policyholders to make changes to their life cover when their needs change, thanks to the following features:

 

o With the cover conversion facility, BrightRock policyholders can use their existing premiums to cover a new need or top up cover on an existing need (up to a maximum of R7,5 million), free of medical tests;

 

o With the extra cover buy-up facility; BrightRock policyholders can buy more cover later (up to a maximum of R7,5 million), with only an HIV test;

 

• World-first flexibility at claim stage. Only BrightRock gives policyholders the ability to change their choice of a lump-sum to a recurring pay-out (or a combination of the two) at claim-stage for their income protection needs on permanent illness or injury and on death. And for the additional expense needs following an illness or injury, BrightRock policyholders can, based on their prognosis, choose either a lump-sum or lump-sum plus recurring pay-outs, increasing pay-out to 200% per body system for some conditions.

 

• Market-leading claims definitions. BrightRock uses objective medical criteria based on international clinical best practice guidelines to assess illness and injury claims, removing many of the traditional barriers to claim. The clinical criteria are underpinned by the Personal Job Fitness Test, ensuring that policyholders can get the benefit, where appropriate, of a pay-out based on their inability to work should they fall short of meeting the medical definition for a claim.