Momentum was announced as the winner of the Product Supplier of the Year: Employee Benefits award at the 2016 Financial Intermediaries Association of Southern Africa (FIA) Awards gala dinner held in Sandton on Thursday (02 June 2016).
Seen as a flagship event on the insurance industry’s calendar, the independently researched awards are recognised as a significant acknowledgement of the quality of the relationship between product, service and the value presented to financial advisers and their clients. Now in its 21st year, the awards are a benchmark against peers and a measure of financial product and supplier excellence.
Momentum Employee Benefits has over 7,300 employers providing retirement and insurance benefits of over 1.6 million of their employees and is the largest group risk provider in South Africa according to the SwissRe Group survey.
Competitive landscapes are changing. The digital era has given birth to the new ‘connected’ world in which empowered and informed consumers have an expectation and demand highly personalised and relevant service experiences. This makes client-centric delivery a non-negotiable. Momentum is also acutely aware of the valuable role that competent financial advice plays on this journey.
Client-centricity is far more than simply delivering service excellence or selling insurance solutions; but rather an alignment of expertise, talent, technology and operations in order to enable clients, at group or individual level, to improve their financial wellness. This involves developing solutions and delivering services that enable companies to have healthy, engaged and financially empowered employees. For employers, this translates into reduced absenteeism and presenteeism, improved productivity and financially healthy bottom lines.
Commenting on the accolade, Regard Budler, Managing Executive MMI Client Solutions, said, “We relentlessly focus on putting the client at the centre of solutions and service. The award for Employee Benefits: Product Supplier of the Year is further testimony to Momentum and the MMI Group’s ability to deliver an exceptional client experience while ensuring that professional financial advice is integral to the process. We are humbled by the industry’s appreciation and especially thank the financial advisers who partner with Momentum to ensure each client’s or businesses’ unique needs are met, on their journey towards financial wellness.”
Solutions draw on best of breed capabilities across the MMI Group, from our flagship FundsAtWork Umbrella Fund to Momentum Health and lower cost offerings such as Health4Me and OcsaCare to innovative group insurance and retirement options.
It’s also about enabling employees to make the right choices on a daily basis. Multiply, Momentum’s wellness and rewards programme integrates and aligns into our employee benefits offerings. By empowering and incentivising employees to make informed decisions, it is possible to see encouraging signs of simple behaviour change, as individuals start making choices to stretch income and free up funds for investing or retirement savings.
Momentum is also seeing how financial advisers are adapting their advice processes so as to support this more holistic approach to solving clients’ needs.
The FIA award follows two other client and industry acknowledgements. MMI’s two client facing brands, Momentum and Metropolitan, were recently ranked on top of the South African Customer Satisfaction Index (SAcsi) and in an independent Consulta Survey, the satisfaction score, for MMI Corporate and Public Sector claims was over 83%, which is regarded as world-class service. Momentum Employee Benefits falls under the MMI Corporate and Public Sector division.
Budler concludes, “To show our gratitude Momentum will be paying it forward by donating R50,000 to POPUP (People Upliftment Programme), a non-profit organisation that supports small to medium size enterprise development. The donation will be used to start profitable projects to create jobs and prosperity”.