Allianz Partners has announced a mental wellbeing pilot programme designed for international students at the University of Auckland, which will be available to customers who currently hold one of its Studentsafe policies.
The programme has been launched along with strategic partner Uprise, and will be available through Allianz Partners’ Mental Wellbeing app. This is part of a trial conducted with the University of Auckland, and the programme is expected to be made widely available next year to both international and domestic students across New Zealand.
Allianz Partners CEO Kevin Blyth said that this programme is part of a “pro-active approach” to mental wellbeing, and will be an early intervention tool that offers students a “mental wellbeing coach in their pocket.” The tool is designed to help students build resilience, optimism, and a stronger mindset.
Blyth noted that the COVID-19 pandemic had been an incredibly stressful time for international students in New Zealand, with both students and working migrants feeling “uncertain about the future.” He said the mental wellbeing of Allianz Partners customers would be a “top priority”, and that the programme aims to fulfil some of the “surging demand for mental health support services in the education sector” across the country.
“It’s been a challenging 18 months, with the instability from COVID-19 leaving many international students feeling uncertain about the future,” Blyth said.
“For Allianz Partners and our university partners, the mental wellbeing of our international students is a top priority. It’s never been more important to support students in a way that is both engaging and accessible.”
“The app is a timely expansion of the suite of digital health and wellbeing services that we offer,” he said. “It reflects the business’s global ambition to meet a growing demand in digital health services.”
The Allianz Care Mental Wellbeing App offers students access to a wellbeing assessment, mental fitness training, and also links to crisis support hotlines for those who need immediate help.
Allianz Partners had previously announced that it would not increase the premiums of its overseas student health cover in 2021, and said that it would freeze premiums to support the health and wellbeing of international students.
With the Australian and New Zealand borders still closed and showing little sign of reopening, Blyth said that uncertainty for international students and travellers had been at an all-time high - however, he noted that this has also resulted in rising interest in travel insurance, and more awareness from the younger demographic around its importance.
“When you look at some of the research that Allianz Partners has done, we’re definitely starting to see a growing interest in travel insurance, particularly among the younger generation,” Blyth said.
“They’re all hoping to be able to start travelling again, and the pandemic has definitely emphasised the importance of having good cover when you do travel.”
Blyth said that we will likely see an uptick in travel confidence once global vaccination rates hit higher numbers. However, he said that 2019 levels of travel may still be far off, though he expects them to increase incrementally over the next few years.
“I think we are likely to see people progressively getting more confident around travelling, and the global vaccination rollout has certainly helped those confidence levels,” Blyth explained.
“I doubt we will see any return to ‘pre-COVID’ travel immediately, but we are envisaging 2024 - 2025 as the time where we might start seeing those 2019 levels of travel again. But we are likely to see it increasing progressively over that interim period, and clearly the first piece for New Zealand is for the border to start being opened up. As I’ve said before, it’s great to see the government starting to talk about some of the options we have outside of lockdowns.”
“For travellers, the main thing is ease and certainty,” he added.
“Nobody wants to book a flight ticket while knowing that they’ll have to go into 14 days of MIQ, so we’re looking forward to seeing what options we’ll have outside of that. Overall, it is safe to say that this whole situation has been very unusual from what all of us have experienced before.”
