The Four Pillars of Plus4 Insurance Solutions

At Plus4 we have a promise we make to our customers: “Choosing the best of the best for you”. This promise represents our point of difference, is the statement that we live by, and has remained unchanged since Plus4 was founded.

In addition, our practice is founded on four core principles or pillars, Best for You, Advocacy, Local but National, and Relationships. These principles four pillars guide us in choosing the best personal and business insurance cover for each individual client.

Best for You

We select the best for you – by using independent research combined with the collective experience of Plus4 Advisers. We believe this gives us a level of transparency, which means you can trust our advisers to give you independent advice.

We start by assessing the independent product rating. This gives us an indication of how the different policies stack up against each other, by looking at their policy wording at an in-depth level. Insurance is only as good as the fine print that it is written with, which is why we use independent research to qualify the products we use. It means our selections are not based on our opinion or the relationship we have with providers.

We use independent research houses, including QPR, Iress, and Plantech, which research all the products on the market and give an unbiased analysis of the features of each.

It is worth noting that while insurance houses open their products to these independent reviews, there are a number of banks who provide insurance, that do not. In our view, this is because ‘in-house’ bank insurance products often rate very poorly in these independent reviews.

The second element we examine is the provider’s financial strength rating. This is rated by A.M Best, and Standard & Poor's (Australia) Pty Ltd, and gives an indication of an insurance provider’s solvency and ability to pay out on claims. There is no point in us helping you get good coverage if the provider can’t pay out at claim time! It’s worth noting that there is also legislation ensuring insurance providers are able to cover their claims, and this was tightened after the Christchurch earthquakes.

Lastly, we look at the claims rating of a provider, which means how many claims they have approved versus how many they have turned down. For example, Sovereign pay 96% of all claims, which is considered a very high rating. It is most likely that the bulk of the 4% they didn’t accept were claims that shouldn’t have been made.

If a provider has a low claims rating, it is an indication that they may have non-industry standard clauses in their fine print or less-than-stellar business practices. We want the best coverage for our clients, so this means we will avoid these providers.

Advocacy

Through the strength of Plus4, we are able to help achieve the best possible policy terms during the application process and deliver the most successful outcome at claim time.

If we believe a claim has been unjustly denied, our Claims Advocacy Team will get together and take a closer look at the wording of the policy, the circumstances of the claim and appeal to the insurance provider on your behalf, at no cost to the client. We have had tremendous success in this space, in the rare event that we do experience claims issues.

Read more about our Claims Advocacy Team in our article here.

Local but National

From Whangarei to Invercargill we have 44 advisers, working from 28 locations. This means not only is there is an adviser near you, but that adviser is also supported by our head office and the entire national team.

Relationships

Of utmost importance to the way we operate is developing trusted relationships that last. Providing you with confidence in your choices and at claim time, we are your personal insurance advisor and are with you to help throughout every stage of your life. This means when your circumstances change we are there to make sure you still have the best coverage and should need to make a claim we are there to help you through it.

Lastly, overarching and supporting our four pillars is the independent best practice review process. We engage a company to conduct an annual review of Plus4 advisers to ensure we are complying with legislation, regulations and codes of conduct. This is not a requirement of the industry, but something we take on voluntarily because we believe it provides another layer of transparency and assurance to our clients.

To make sure you are getting the best insurance coverage, from a passionate and professional adviser, contact one of our team today.

The circumstances of every claim are unique, so always talk to your adviser about your circumstances and your policies when making a claim - we are here to support you through this process.