Suncorp is aiming to boost life insurance sales by selling more policies through its bank branches, call centres and other direct channels, reducing its reliance on sales through independent financial advisers (IFA).
Chief executive Patrick Snowball yesterday told a media briefing the company took a strategic decision about 18 months ago to drive a larger amount of its life insurance business through its direct channels.
"From our perspective, it uses 50 per cent less capital per policy than a policy sold through the IFAs," Snowball said.
The strategy opened the door for the group to sell life products to some 8.7 million customers who have Suncorp general insurance and other policies with its wholly-owned insurers, including AAMI, Apia and GIO.
"The life company now has access to and is interacting with all our general insurance customers to sell them direct business as well."
Suncorp's life insurance profit fell 22 per cent over the year to $147 million, largely on the back of increased claims.
However, new business climbed 21 per cent from a year ago to $104 million.
New business from IFAs made up the lion's share, up 14 per cent to $56 million, but new business from direct channels grew the fastest in percentage terms, up 22 per cent to $23 million. New group risk business climbed 10 per cent to $13 million.
Snowball said Suncorp was planning to expand its life insurance profit.
"It will be growing because 22 per cent of our business this year was from direct life and we look to see that accelerating. We have got aggressive growth targets. We are starting to access our AAMI customers and Apia customers, but we never really give any forward targets," he said.
Suncorp's annual net profit fell 42 per cent to $453 million, mainly on the back of increased claims from a series of floods and storms in Australia and earthquakes in New Zealand.
