Cover Genius and TAL innovate to address underinsurance
Strategic partnership aims to make financial protection simple and accessible for more working Australians 2025 -Australian life insurer, TAL, has partnered with leading global insurtech Cover Genius to launch embedded life insurance in Australia, with the introduction of backd by TAL.
Simple, affordable and digital-only life insurance, backd leverages Cover Genius’ world-leading digital distribution and TAL’s life insurance expertise to meet a gap in the market. Millions of Australians, including part-time workers, contractors and casual employees, face limited access to affordable protection options.
TAL and Cover Genius aim to address this gap by integrating accessible insurance into everyday platforms that Australians already use and trust.
Employers will be able to provide through their payroll platforms Life, Income and Illness protection via streamlined online registration with no underwriting and 100% digital claims processing.
TAL Group CEO and Managing Director, Fiona Macgregor, said the two companies shared an intent to push boundaries and shape the future of the insurance industry, to make a difference in the lives of more Australians.
“At the core of our Cover Genius partnership is ensuring more Australians who want and need insurance can get it. To do this, cover should be tailored to their needs, and be easy to access, understand and keep.
“Life insurance is much more than death benefits. Last year, 74% of the 54,000 claims we paid supported the recovery of people with an illness or injury that prevented them from working.
“With backd, more Australians will get support critical to their recovery, addressing an important community need,” said Ms Macgregor.
Angus McDonald, CEO and Co-Founder at Cover Genius said the opportunity to make life insurance more readily available through digital disruption and partnerships is huge.
“Many people do not have life insurance either because they feel they cannot afford it, have not been offered it or think the process will be too complex.
“backd overcomes these issues, by giving employers a simple way to offer their employees easily accessible protection that suits their income and financial needs by simply embedding it into their existing HR or payroll platform.”
backd offers tailored, affordable options for workers not currently eligible for other types of cover, paying benefits of $100 - $300 per day for Income Protection and up to $150,000 for Life Insurance.
Over time, the partners plan to offer backd direct to consumers through a range of organisations in sectors such as health and banking.
A solution tailored to the needs of young Australians
An estimated 1 million Australians are underinsured for death and total and permanent disability (TPD)1, while 3.4 million have no or insufficient income protection, with younger Australians being disproportionately represented in these figures2. And with a significant number of Australians employed under contractor, casual, or labour hire arrangements, millions of workers lack basic leave benefits and affordable insurance options through superannuation.
Cover Genius’ data shows that Australians aged 25-44 are significantly more likely to purchase bite-sized life insurance and prefer to purchase it online.
“With backd, we’re providing the right cover, via the right channel, at the right price,” said Mr McDonald.
“Solutions such as bite-sized Life and Income Protection can also serve as a way to engage younger Australians who may not yet have seriously considered their needs but have come to appreciate the ease and value of purchasing embedded protection online for other things such as travel and music events.
“Making protection easy to understand, financially accessible and simple to access online through employers and other trusted partners is a logical next step in levelling the life insurance playing field.”
1. FSC Australia Underinsurance Report (2022)
2. According to the latest ABS data, 2.6 million employees do not have paid leave entitlements (22% of employees, and 18% of all employed); 20% of employees considered their job to be casual; 2.8% of all employed Australians were working under labour hire arrangements; and there were 1.1 million independent contractors (7.5% of all employed) ABS, August 2024 Characteristics of Employment, Australia, August 2024 | Australian Bureau of Statistics.