Asteron life insurance review

It was over 175 years ago when the first life insurance policy was written in Australia by Asteron Life Insurance. Asteron Life Insurance has been writing policies and paying claims in Australia ever since. Fast forward to 2008 and the same company was found to have paid out more than $369 million in that one year to a total of 6,200 policyholders. That figure equates with paying out $1 million a day to Australian families when they needed help the most.

Why should I consider Asteron for my life insurance?

Asteron Life Insurance is sold through an experienced financial adviser. The company's policy is to offer high quality sustainable products with features made to fit in with the needs of the customer's lifestyle. It places much emphasis on fully understanding everything concerning its policyholders health relationship.

Asteron Life Insurance can help you with affordable life insurance options that will guarantee your family's financial future should something happen to you.

Reasons to consider Asteron for your life insurance

What are the key features of insurance with Asteron?

There are five types of cover available through Asteron Life Complete—Life Insurance, Total and Permanent Disablement (TPD) Insurance, Trauma Insurance, Income Protection Insurance and Business Expenses Insurance. It’s also possible to apply for additional Child Cover to increase the level of cover provided to your family.

The key features of Asteron Life Complete include:

• Worldwide cover. No matter where you are in the world, you’re covered 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
• Automatic increase. The level of cover increases every year to keep pace with inflation.
• Guarantee of upgrade. If the Asteron Life Complete policy is improved, these improvements will be passed on to the policy you have already taken out if they don’t result in an increase to your premium.
• Guaranteed future insurability. If life events like having children or getting a pay rise prompt you to increase your cover, you’re able to do so without providing any further medical information.
• Grief support service. If either you or your immediate family need grief counselling at the time of a claim, Asteron Life will pay for up to four hours of initial confidential grief counselling (or up to six hours if you choose combined counselling) for you or your immediate family.

What are the different types of Asteron Insurance?

• Life insurance
• TPD
• Trauma Cover
• Income Protection
• Business Expenses Insurance
• Child Cover

Am I eligible for cover?

_{Note: Age of entry is based on the premium you choose and other factors}

Can I get cover without doing a medical exam?

In late 2013, Asteron launched no medical life insurance, a first for the Australian industry from a major life insurance company. Asteron previously required a "Personal Medical Attendant Report” supplied by a doctor with many applications, but now that this requirement has been removed, the application process is quicker and you can receive cover quicker.

In addition, Asteron eliminated specialist medical examinations and mandatory ECGs (resting and exercise). Other changes included the introduction of Asteron ‘own GP medical' for particular sums insured, the introduction of a new Exercise Echocardiogram requirement at $5,000,001 for Term Life Insurance/TPD Insurance and no mandatory medical requirements for clients aged under 55 and applying for less than a set amount of Life Insurance/TPD Insurance.

Asteron also made significant changes to its Income Protection Insurance. These include the ability for clients under the age of 50 to apply for up to $12,500 cover per month without medicals, while those over 50 have the ability to apply for up to $10,000 cover per month without medicals.

Finally, Asteron Insurance reduced its eligibility period for TPD Insurance from six to three months, meaning policyholders are now able to make claims sooner.

Does Asteron have any rewards programs for members?

If you’re in good health, you can get substantial discounts and other benefits from Asteron. Fortunately, Asteron has programs to make it easier to get these discounts.

You can receive 20% off your premiums

In order receive this offer, you need to qualify for the Healthy Plus bonus by taking a series of tests. If you pass, a 20% premium discount is applied.

How do I qualify?

These tests involve a combination of health tests, personal information and other evidence of healthy living.

You have the option of retaking the tests each year to maintain the discount or giving it a miss. If you choose not to retake the test, the discount will only decrease by 1% each year. If you skip it for 10 consecutive years, you’ll then be getting only 10% off. However, once you reach this point, Asteron Life guarantees the 10% discount for the duration of the policy.

With Asteron, getting in shape can save you thousands of dollars. The Life Plus program makes it a lot easier and lets you get there at your own pace.

Has Asteron won any awards?

In November 2010 Asteron Life Insurance was named CoreData 2010 Life Company of the Year for the second year in a row. This award was based on a survey taken from 840 advisers, financial planners and risk insurance specialists. The CoreData study focused on the strengths and weaknesses of life risk manufacturers against each other as well as measuring their attitudes and commitments to advisers and planners.

On making the award, Kristen Paech, the head of Advice and Superannuation Research at CoreData said Asteron received the award for the second time in two years because if its consistency across all service levels measured in the research, particularly new business submissions, overall end to end business processing, post sale administration, call centres and communications. The CoreData study had looked at risk insurance providers who offered products such as income protection, trauma, term life, total permanent disablement and business insurance.

Can I hold my life insurance through super?

It’s also possible to hold your Asteron Life Cover, TPD Cover and Income Protection policies through superannuation. This can be arranged through the Suncorp Master Trust or through your own self-managed superannuation fund.

If you choose this option, you will have to satisfy contribution rules relating to super. Government regulations define when contributions can be made, the level of contributions that can be made without penalty and when you can access your superannuation benefits.

Any benefits you receive will then be paid to your super fund and form part of your superannuation account. Benefits can only be released in accordance with ‘release conditions’ provided by relevant legislation. Death benefits may be paid as a lump sum payment or as an income stream.

You can also link covers over two policies if the life insured is the same person. For example, covers on a policy held under superannuation can be linked to a policy outside of superannuation. This added flexibility lets you tailor cover to suit your needs.

Combining Your Asteron Life Insurance Inside Super with Policies Outside of Superannuation

How are my premiums paid?

You can pay your premiums using the following methods:

• Direct debit
• Credit card
• BPAY (not available if paying premiums monthly)
• IDPS or super fund contributions (for policies held in super and only with certain super funds)
• Money order or cheque (not available if paying premiums monthly)

• How often can you pay premiums?

  You can also choose whether you’ll be paying premiums monthly, quarterly, half-yearly or yearly, and you can change this whenever you want as long as your premiums are up to date. Where possible, it’s preferable to pay premiums annually since this will work out cheaper.

  The following are the minimum premiums you will pay with this policy, depending on your payment frequency:

  • Yearly: $250
  • Half-yearly: $125
  • Quarterly: $65
  • Monthly: $25

• What affects the cost of my premium?

  Your life style factors

  These are the minimums you will pay regardless of any discounts or loadings which may apply. Loadings are factors which push the premiums upwards and can include the following:

  • Health and lifestyle factors
  • Your current age, or the age at which you took out the policy, depending on your premium structure
  • Your sex, occupation, smoking status and other loadings at the time of taking out the policy

  Policy factors

  The following factors determine the cost of your cover:

  • Your sum insured
  • The different types of cover included in your policy. More linked cover costs more, but generally less than it would to get each as a standalone policy
  • The optional extras and other features included in your policy

  Your premiums will be largely dependent on which payment structure you’re on. The three options are level, stepped and mixed premiums, and you can switch at almost any time.

• Level premiums
• Stepped premiums
• Mixed premiums

What other charges are there to be aware of?

Regardless of which structure you choose, your policy will also have set administration fees, which may gradually increase over time in line with inflation. When you take out cover, your policy will show the fees that apply at the time your cover commenced.

Policy fees as of March 2015:

• Yearly: $86.12
• Half-yearly: $44.35
• Quarterly: $22.74
• Monthly: $7.58

There may also be additional expenses involved in making a claim, such as administrative fees for obtaining required documentation. You or the policy beneficiary will need to pay these and you cannot claim them from Asteron.

How do I make a claim?

If something happens, you have 30 days to contact Asteron and let them know you’ll be making a claim. After 30 days, it is possible that benefits may be reduced or claims declined if assessment was made more difficult as a result of the delay.

1. To make a claim, you will need to send in a filled out claim form. Contact Asteron as soon as you are able for more information and to have the right forms sent to you.
2. You will need to fill out sections, if able, and where applicable your doctor will also need to complete sections. Procedures and things that need to be included depend on what kind of claim you’re making.
3. In all cases, you will need to include proof of the event’s occurrence and your original PDS and benefit schedule.

What evidence is required?

• Life insurance
• Income protection

Do Asteron pay out claims?

• Total Claims Paid by Asteron in 2011 - Total $248.2 million

Breakdown on Claims in 2011

• Life - $76.2 million
• Total and Permanent Disablement - $21.5 million
• Trauma - $59.3 million
• Income Protection and Business Expenses - $91.3million

How long do life insurance claims take?

Asteron assess income protection, trauma, death & terminal Illness claims, which all have different requirements. There is not a set timeframe for assessment because there are so many variables. However Asteron endeavour assess a claim as quickly as possible as they understand the importance of the outcome of the claim.

If there is a beneficiary on the policy it is “generally” a quicker process than if not. Depending on information surrounding the passing of the life insured there can be further requirements needed (or not). If no will is provided this can delay the claims process.

While there can be many variances, many of Asteron death claims are paid within a week.

What exclusions are there?

These are situations where the policy won’t pay out. Some of these conditions may be imposed at the time you take out the policy, based on factors specific to you. For example, if you fly airplanes recreationally, the underwriter might want to write an exclusion into your policy stipulating that you have no cover in the event of an air crash, unless you were flying as a commercial airline passenger at the time.

For death, you cannot claim if it was caused directly or indirectly by self-inflicted acts within 13 months of the policy commencement date, cover reinstatement or an increase to your sum insured.

For income protection and business expenses type cover, the following exclusions apply:

• No cover for acts of war
• No cover for intentionally self-inflicted acts
• No cover for your voluntary involvement in criminal acts
• No pregnancy cover, or benefits for childbirth of miscarriage, unless you are continuously, totally disabled beyond 90 days
• No benefits payable while you are incarcerated for any reason
• When a policy is held inside superannuation, no benefits may be payable if the event giving rise to a claim occurred while you were unemployed

Trauma insurance, and other types of claims, may be rejected if the claimable event is the result of a pre-existing condition not specifically covered by your policy. This can include conditions you showed symptoms of prior to taking out cover if those symptoms would cause a reasonable person to seek medical advice.

Receive a quote for Asteron Life Insurance from an adviser