Around 200 advisers were at Auckland’s NZ International Convention Centre today for the annual AIA New Zealand Summit with CEO Nick Stanhope encouraging advisers to take the day to think about their business’ destination in these very fast-moving times.
Themed around Built for Better, Stanhope set the tone for the one-day summit indicating that if someone’s destination is not clear it is easy to mistake movement for progress.
He said the day was designed for advisers to sit back, think about what their destination is – for their business, their teams, their clients and for their families.
His challenge was that advisers take away some clarity from the day, to take one insight and one action and use that to build a better business.
Frances Valintine, (CNZM), the founder of academyEX, The Mind Lab and Tech Futures Lab, who is described as one of New Zealand’s leading voices on the future of work and societal change, delivered a keynote address.
She told the summit that New Zealand, like the majority of western counties, was experiencing hyper-change through very significant demographic shifts as people live longer and younger people move much later into significant milestones.
In turn 25% of over 65 year olds are still working, with Valintine also pointing to the swiftly falling number of taxpayers to superannuitants, predicted to reach a ratio of 2:1 in 2060-2070.
Alongside this is a much lower fertility rate and the rise of AI companions among the Gen Z cohort, reaching such a level they have been banned for young people in China.
Valintine highlighted the country’s reliance on a talented migrant workforce, that is also in demand throughout the rest of the world, and to the big migrant populations here, noting there is a gap advisers need to see.
…If you have a “culturally neutral database” you are missing out on customers…
If you have a “culturally neutral database”, she said, you are missing out on customers – in 2023 0.97 million of New Zealand’s population identified as coming from Asia while 43% of Auckland’s population was born overseas.
The event also included “A Leadership Conversation” with Stanhope and Biswa Misra the Group Chief Technology and Life Operations Officer (AIA Group) and Director looking at the use of AI locally and within AIA globally.
Misra, who is based in Hong Kong, said globally AIA had spent the equivalent of $NZ1.34 billion on modernising its infrastructure.
Stanhope said locally the company wants to make what it sells more understandable and offer tools to help people understand their own policies in more detail. He pointed to a “better narrative” looking at how to bring a policy to life – what it means for the customer and what it covers and what it doesn’t.
Stanhope said the company is using AI to look at its underwriting and will also look at claims.
He said the products AIA designs are the concept of what it believes consumers want – and if there are diversions to that, the company will know in real time, and will see the changing customer needs.
It is also using agentic AI in product development, which drastically shortens the development cycle, although the human element still takes time. He pointed to 10 times the innovation and 10 times better outcomes for clients.
Stanhope noted this will also see some cost benefits to the consumer in that cost delivery and cost of service will fall.
