Last chance to have your say on the withdrawal of the Insurance staff benefit

15/03/2023

Peseta Sam sent the below information to all staff last week…

We have reviewed and considered all of your feedback and have worked with the insurers to explore options available to us. The summary of our responses to feedback is available on Te Aka.

To allow kaimahi time to consider the information we’ve provided below, we’re extending consultation by another week. Consultation will close at 5:00pm, Thursday 16 March.

Share your thoughts here>> 

One theme of the feedback was around the proposed timeframe for withdrawal of the benefit being insufficient for kaimahi to seek alternative insurance cover (see theme 7 below).

We have taken this on board and have worked alongside the brokers and insurance companies to see what other options they could provide for our kaimahi.

After discussions, our insurers for both the life and income protection insurance schemes have agreed to offer the option of continuation for all kaimahi who were covered by the group scheme prior to 1 January 2023, under the following conditions:

  • Option of continuation of cover without the need for comprehensive medical assessment, provided this is taken up within 60 days of group plan coverage ceasing.
  • Individuals would pay for their own insurance cover. Kaimahi will need to negotiate independently and individually with the insurers.  We can arrange for Advisors to visit Unitec and meet with members of the Unitec group insurance plan to provide advice and quotes.  They can arrange time slots to meet with members individually who wish to seek advice on insurance.

In addition to this, we are proposing to extend the date for withdrawal of the benefit by another three weeks, to allow kaimahi a bit more time to explore alternatives and/or engage with the insurers should they wish to take up the offer of continued individual coverage. The proposed date for withdrawal of the benefits (ie. the date that coverage would cease) would therefore be 21 April 2023.

Please read the full summary of feedback and share your thoughts by 5:00pm, Thursday 16 March.

We will then consider any further feedback before making a final decision. We aim to share this around Thursday 23 March.