The Australasian Life Underwriting and Claims Association (ALUCA) has announced the winners of its annual excellence awards and conferred its top Life Membership honours on Carly Van Den Akker of Swiss Re and John O’Leary of TAL. 

MLC Life Insurance topped three of the 10 categories, taking home the claims teams, professional and rising star awards. 

“It was wonderful to celebrate talent in the life insurance industry who are achieving outstanding outcomes for our customers, financial advisers and clients,” ALUCA Chair Joanne Faglioni said. 

“Seeing some of the initiatives across leadership and innovation in the entries received this year makes me proud to be part of this industry.” 

ALUCA CEO Amanda McKernan says Ms Van Den Akker, Swiss Re Head Life and Health Claims ANZ, provided strong leadership as former ALUCA Rehab Chair, six years as board member and current role as TPD Claims/Rehab Group Lead. 

TAL’s Mr O’Leary, who joined the insurer in July 2021 as Underwriting Quality Assurance & Training Consultant, was recognised for his outstanding service as former board Chair, CEO and driving several ALUCA portfolios for more than 10 years most notably education. 

“Both have made an incredible contribution to both ALUCA and the industry and should be very proud of their achievements,” Ms McKernan said. 

MLC Life Insurance Chief Claims Officer Andrew Beevors praised his teams for their achievements. 

“Our teams are focused on delivering the best-in-claims experience and offering the most empathetic claims experience, because we know that making a claim is when our promise for life matters most to our customers, often coming at a challenging time,” he said. 

“As well as recognising the work of our people, these awards importantly recognised one of the innovations we’ve made to improve the claims experience for our customers and partners.” 

He says the Retail Claims Fast Track was a “successful” innovation, the aim of which was to reduce processing times and the need for excessive documentation for straightforward claims. 

Here are the winners: 

Leadership Award – Mitali Waghmare, AIA Australia 

Professional Award – Alex Kelly, MLC Life Insurance 

Rehabilitation Award – June Khaw, Hannover Re 

Rising Star Award – Kieran Seenan, MLC Life Insurance 

David Mico Education Award – Rebekah Raftopoulos, Workcom 

Underwriting Team of The Year Award – TAL Underwriting Risk & Strategy Team 

Claims Team of The Year Award – Retail Claims Fast Track, MLC Life Insurance 

Customer Service Team Award – QInsure Claims Team Australian Retirement Trust 

Innovation Team Award – TAL Retirement Group Longevity Insurance Team 

Volunteer Hero Award – Shane Burdack, Swiss Re