Zurich: continuing to support you

Two weeks on from the closure of all schools and crèches in Ireland, we are delighted to be in position to tell you that we are moving closer to full operational and service team capacity. The Zurich service teams, corporate pensions teams, claims and underwriting are all set up to work from home and have been continuing to process key transactions that have been received.

We thank all our broker partners for their continued patience and support as we complete the transition to a remote working environment.

Regular premium pension and savings products

Understandably one of the most common queries we’ve had over the last number of weeks has been requests to take a premium holiday on a regular contribution policy. At Zurich, we have a 'premium skip' facility on our regular premium pensions products that allows a client to take a premium holiday of up to 12 months without it triggering any clawback of commission. This applies to policies that have been in force for 12 months or longer. We have now decided to extend this facility to policies which are in force for less than 12 months so that a premium holiday of three months will now be allowed. And we will also now allow a premium holiday of three months on regular premium savings products.

The important supports announced by the Government in recent days for businesses and individuals will help many of your clients to stay on track with their financial plans. In these uncertain times, many people are focused more than ever on making sure they keep a strong financial plan in place, with the help of their financial broker. Where a customer is in financial difficulty, we would encourage you to discuss the premium skip option, and we would suggest a premium skip of three months. A premium skip means that premiums will restart automatically at the end of the skip period, allowing customers to get back on track with their financial plans.

Protection products – helping customers to stay on cover

Zurich’s Reinstatement Clause allows customers to reinstate their policy within three months of missing a premium, without medical evidence even if a claim has occurred. This important feature ensures that your customers need not worry about losing their protection benefits if they run into financial difficulty over the next few months. When the policy is reinstated, we will simply collect the outstanding premiums and the policy will continue.

Working with Zurich

For the moment, email continues to be the best way for you to contact us. All our existing email contact details remain valid and our teams are responding to requests as quickly as possible. You’ll find a list of all our email contacts on the link below. Our Broker Consultants are also available on the phone and via email: www.zurich.ie/broker-centre/contact-us/

What instructions can we accept via email?
We can accept many Financial Broker and Advisor requests via email, including:

• Fund Switches on Savings and Investments plans, ARFs, Personal Pensions, PRBs, PRSAs, and One-man Executive Pensions.
• Premium Skips/Holidays
• Premium Increases/Decreases
• DD Alterations – changes to billing dates, collection of missed premiums, policy revivals. If it’s a new mandate, we need a mandate completed to comply with SEPA legislation.
• Individual Change of Address
• Policy Commencement dates
• Policy Cancellations
• Premium Quotations
• ARF Regular Withdrawals/Amendments
• Banks Details – for payment requests, please ensure you provide bank details so that payments can be paid by direct credit. Payments by Direct Credit allow us to ensure that your clients continue to receive payments in a secure and timely manner.

When you do send us an email instruction, make sure to include the following:

• Your client’s full name & policy number.
• Details of full instruction including all documentation.
• For fund switches the % or value of fund(s) being switched out of.
• Fund(s) being switched in to (and be sure to only select funds that are available under your client’s policy).
• Confirmation that the switch instruction is being remitted following discussions with the policy owner.
• Confirmation if the switch is for the existing fund only, future contributions only or both existing fund and future contributions.

Submitting business to us

New business online submission: The vast majority of our Protection business is submitted to us using OnlineApply. But don’t forget that you can also submit Regular Premium Personal Pensions and Regular Premium PRSAs online, attach the customer declaration, and put live immediately. This is a great way of continuing to work with your clients remotely. We’re also continuing to pay an additional €100 for RP Pensions/PRSAs submitted online.

Editable Application Forms: Our application forms available in editable format – these are available from your Broker Consultant.

What about AML?

Where there is a requirement to submit anti-money laundering (AML) requirements, and AML documentation can’t be certified, we can accept photographs/scans of AML documentation.   However, if uncertified AML documentation is being submitted, in order to mitigate the risk we will require two forms of address verification in addition to the standard photo ID.

Therefore, if uncertified AML documentation is being submitted we will require:

• One standard ID verification document (passport, driving licence etc.); and
• Two separate forms of address verification (utility bill, bank statement etc.)

Online Access via ZurichBroker.ie

We continue to encourage you to use the secure Broker Centre to get updates on your clients’ policies. We’ve seen a significant increase in the use of our ‘existing business client reports’ as Financial Brokers use the functionally to create bespoke timely market update reports for customers.