A broader insurance offering will be the outcome of a proposed alliance between insurer Australian Income Protection (AIP) and a major group insurer.
AIP national sales manager Michael Burke told Investor Weekly the insurer had approached a group that included AIA Australia, Tower Australia and MetLife to create a strategic alliance, with an announcement expected within the next six weeks.
"We've concluded a lot of the dialogues and are now pushing forward with one insurer specifically," Burke said.
The alliance would mean that AIP would cover the income protection (IP) aspect of a tender, while the chosen insurer would put together the death and total and permanent disablement (TPD) insurance component.
"It is our view that not too many life insurers are skilful at both sides of the equation ... we don't cover life insurance but we can cover the IP equation," Burke said.
The concept for the strategic alliance came out of the tendering process for the AustralianSuper insurance contract that was ultimately won by Tower Australia late last year.
AIP made it into the final four insurers and according to Burke many of the features that it offered were placed into the final offer that AustralianSuper was able to provide for its members.
"A number of life insurers wanted to partner with us at this time, but we really only wanted one partner," Burke said.
AIP is also in direct talks with a number of superannuation funds, with several tenders coming up.
"We provide a very competitive alternative to the traditional life insurance market in Australia. It is our view that the life insurance market has adopted a very conservative approach and that's part of the overall strategy to grow the business," Burke said.
AIP began in 2003 and has contracts wtih Club Super, Martime Super and ESI Super amongst others.
