News that Partners Life is making product changes to its monthly disability covers resonated strongly with readers this week…

Partners Life is making the Total and Permanent Disability Benefit optional on its monthly disability covers and has also announced other minor policy changes along with an increase to Medical pricing.

The new product changes are effective from March 15, 2025 while the medical premium changes are effective from April 22, 2025.

In an adviser update Partners Life says says advisers can now “…give clients more choice to help meet their insurance needs and take pressure off their pockets. We’re customising our monthly disability covers so that clients don’t have to pay for every feature if they don’t really need it.”

…if your client opts out of TPD the premium for their monthly disability cover will reduce accordingly…

It adds that the built-in TPD Benefit will become a TPD Option.

“If your client opts out of TPD, the premium for their monthly disability cover will reduce accordingly.”

This change applies to Mortgage Repayment Cover, Household Expenses Covers and Income Cover Agreed Value, Agreed Loss of Earnings and Indemnity Loss of Earnings.

Partners Life says it has made some other changes, also effective from March 15, “…to make things easier for your clients.”

  • Out of Hospital Cardiac Arrest: It has made changes to its Trauma Cover and Moderate Trauma Cover to provide more certainty for clients who have suffered an out of hospital cardiac arrest. It has removed obsolete medical requirements, and added current diagnostic tools used by medical staff to confirm a cardiac arrest has occurred. It has also future proofed the wording to allow for new and future diagnostic tools to ensure policy wordings are modern and up to date.
  • Notifying Clients of their Buy-Back Options following Claim: Partners Life has updated its Trauma, Moderate Trauma and Severe Trauma Cover wordings to let clients know that it will notify them when they can exercise their Life Cover or Deferred Trauma Cover buy-back options.

Upcoming Medical Premium Changes

The company adds that over the past year the volume and cost of medical claims has increased and that this includes the impact of rising costs in general, and particularly, in the medical sector.

“To appropriately reflect these heightened costs, the premium rates for Private Medical Cover including Specialists and Tests Option, will increase by 18% and the policy fee will increase from $58.08 to $64.13 per annum, both from 22nd April 2025.”

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