Asteron Life enhances support for businesses with changes to premium relief options on business products

9 September 2021

To support businesses to maintain their cover during periods of temporary financial hardship, Asteron Life has announced today that it is making changes to the premium relief options it offers business customers.  

The changes include adding a premium holiday benefit of up to six months, and premium and cover suspension benefits of up to 12 months to business insurance policies.  

The new benefits were set to take effect in late September 2021, but have been brought forward to ensure they are available to business customers dealing with the impact of the latest Covid-19 alert level changes across the country. 

Robyn Bartlett, Product Manager at Asteron Life, says that the changes are to support the long-term sustainability of life insurance products for business customers. 

“The impact that Covid-19 has had on small business owners has been disproportionate, and many have found themselves in the situation of desperately needing to make any savings that they can to stay afloat through periods of lockdown or disruption,” she says.  

“When times are tough, life insurance premiums are often an expense that SMEs will try to reduce or cut completely, often to the detriment of their long-term financial resilience.” 

The premium holiday benefit has been added to Asteron Life’s Business Insurance and SmartBusiness lump sum covers, while premium and cover suspension benefits have been added to Business Insurance, Key Person and Business Expenses disability covers. They are already available on the majority of Asteron Life’s personal products. 

For premium holidays on lump sum covers, cover will remain claimable while the premiums are waived, while on disability covers, cover will be put on hold while premiums are being waived.  

She says that Asteron Life’s brand platform - Supporters for Life – means it is committed to ensuring its products are sustainable for business and personal insurance policy holders.

These product enhancements follow the support that Asteron Life has offered customers since Covid-19 first hit. 

“Throughout 2020, we offered comprehensive support packages to customers affected by Covid-19, including providing nearly $4 million in premium relief and waivers,” she says. 

“We temporarily extended premium relief to approximately 50,000 business and personal customers who didn’t have inbuilt benefits in their policies. The changes we have announced today make these permanent policy benefits for our business products, which means that eligible business customers can apply to access premium waivers or holidays for Covid related hardship or anything else that creates temporary financial difficulties in the future.” 

As with the premium relief options which apply to its other products, the new benefits will include qualifying criteria. 

These, and other updates to Asteron’s suite of products, will be shared as part of Asteron Life’s upcoming adviser webinar series.