Meet the Team – Jo Hetherington – Head of Financial Health

What is your role at TAL? 

I am the Head of Financial Health at TAL and use my background in forensic accounting to provide expertise and advice across the health services, underwriting and claims department. It is an exciting and broad-ranging role to be in. Within my role, I also have the opportunity to assist our strong and capable product development professionals working on solutions and improvements by sharing technical insights.

I am particularly passionate about the training and development of claims and underwriting professionals, leading financial training programs and helping to enhance the understanding of financial risk across the business and the industry.

What is your professional background?

I have worked in the financial services industry for over 30 years and am a qualified Chartered Accountant. After starting my career working for one of the ‘big 4’ accounting firms as an expert witness in personal injury and commercial litigation cases, I held a range of other positions before joining TAL in 2011.

I started in the newly-created role of Head of Financial Health and have led the development of this pillar of health within the health services team—championing a holistic approach to our customers’ physical, mental, and financial health.

I believe that these things go hand-in-hand. I am determined to help our customers achieve good financial health through ensuring the adequate assessment of their financial risk—both during the underwriting process and at claims time.

What role do you play in helping to support advisers to deliver value for their clients?

One of my team’s primary responsibilities is to ensure that we are properly understanding our customers financial situations and insurance needs.

My team has developed calculators to ensure that we are consistent in our assessments of insurable income, both at the time of underwriting and claim. This also allows us to be clear and transparent in our methodologies and make sure we are treating all customers equally and fairly when determining potential and actual financial losses.

It is extremely rewarding knowing that we can make things better for both our customers and advisers by inputting into product designs, based on the learnings and insights from working on real cases.

Leading the financial thought leadership and training programs through TAL Risk Academy allows me to play my role in providing advisers with additional knowledge and expertise to boost their education and upskill them in certain areas. Our aim is to help advisers confidently deliver real value to their clients and build long-lasting relationships based on trust and mutual respect.

What are you most excited about in your role for the coming 12 months?

I am most looking forward to continuing to provide better customer and adviser experiences across all aspects of the TAL business that I am proud to be a part of—in claims, underwriting, and training and development.

As a board member of the Australasian Life Underwriting and Claims Association (ALUCA), I am also excited to bring the industry together and work on though leadership and advocacy projects, and in turn, better outcomes for both life insurers and customers. This work is infused in so many of our initiatives at TAL, and we only want to continue working to develop positive solutions for the betterment of customers and advisers alike.

Jo Hetherington