Industry superannuation fund Sunsuper has merged its superannuation, insurance and advice product teams under a single new division.
The new division, to be led by Sunsuper executive Andrew Nicholson, is part of the fund's five-year strategic plan and comes in response to the needs of its 1 million-plus members.
"Sunsuper's five-year strategy identified the need to enhance our product management capability," Nicholson, now in the executive role of product general manager, told Investor Weekly.
"So the division was created to provide increased focus on product design and development to better meet member needs and also bring together some super product specialists into one team."
He said the $19-billion fund's focus would be on "solutions for pre-retirees and retirees" as well as focusing on more sophisticated member needs in super and retirement.
"We're also looking at our mass-market offering and improving in that space as well, including improving our default," he said.
Previously, Sunsuper had a product team under his leadership that focused on superannuation and retirement and was housed within the fund's customer experience and insights team, he said.
The fund also had a separate insurance product team within its insurance services section that focused on claims and underwriting.
"So we pulled the product piece out of insurance services and the product piece out of customer experience to create the new division," Nicholson said.
Asked whether there were any staff redundancies as a result of combining the teams, he said it was the opposite, with the fund actively recruiting.
"There is going to be an increase in headcount; we're going to recruit a number of roles," he said.
"There will be three teams within the product division. Each of these teams will have end-to-end accountability for product design, development and management.
"The three teams are the super and retirement products team, second is the insurance products team and third is an advice and retirement solutions team.
"So we're currently recruiting for those roles and additional roles will follow."
