TAL has announced a research partnership with McCrindle, a social research and advisory firm, to launch an annual Modern Australia Index that will provide data on trends affecting the life insurer’s customers, financial advisers, and other partners.
TAL has entered a research partnership with McCrindle to generate regular analysis of social, demographic, and economic trends in Australia. The Modern Australia Index will be released annually and is intended to inform how the life insurer, its partners, and financial advisers work with customers. The index will give financial advisers a current view of the conditions shaping client needs, including household budgets, health patterns, and digital behaviour. TAL also expects to draw on the findings in product design and customer strategy across its advice, direct, and group business.
Founder and principal at McCrindle, Mark McCrindle, said the index was developed to assess Australians’ preparedness amid overlapping changes. “Geopolitics, digital, and economic trends are changing more than just Australians’ economic mobility; they are changing how they think about the future. This research will provide a clear sense of Australians’ long-term outlook, and their current financial reality, health, digital behaviours, and social connectivity,” McCrindle said.
The Modern Australia Index will cover topics that commonly feature in adviser-client discussions:
Its longitudinal design will allow insurers and advisers to track how sentiment and circumstances shift over time, in addition to point‑in‑time surveys and internal data.
Initial generational analysis from McCrindle points to different starting positions between older and younger cohorts that may influence advice recommendations. The research suggests Baby Boomers hold around half of Australia’s private net wealth but still face higher everyday expenses as prices rise. By contrast, working‑age cohorts such as Gen X and Gen Y are generally in higher-earning phases of their careers but hold less net wealth, which can reduce their capacity to absorb periods of economic volatility. These patterns intersect with decisions on income protection, life and disability cover, retirement planning, and intergenerational transfers. The index is expected to add another reference point when weighing cover levels, premium settings, and product structures across age and income groups.
TAL general manager, consumer and growth, Alexis Denby, said the research partnership is intended to add to the insurer’s understanding of current customer needs and to be a resource for advisers. “Demographics are shifting, healthcare needs are changing, and consumer expectations are evolving at pace. Our partnership with McCrindle gives us a comprehensive view of those changes. Advisers are working harder than ever to understand what their clients need – and we want to give them something that genuinely helps with that. For TAL, these insights will shape the products we offer, and how we engage with and support our customers,” Denby said. The Modern Australia Index will be available to financial advisers and industry partners from July 2026. It is likely to sit alongside macroeconomic indicators, internal claims experience, and distribution data when assessing underinsurance, lapse behaviour, and product suitability.
The launch of the TAL-McCrindle initiative comes as the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) reports that living costs increased for all household types in the 12 months to the December 2025 quarter. ABS head of prices statistics Michelle Marquardt said annual increases ranged from 2.3% to 4.2%, depending on each household group’s spending profile. Housing, food and non‑alcoholic beverages, and recreation and culture were the main contributors to the rises. Households whose main source of income is government payments recorded the largest annual increases in living costs.
The ABS noted that these households experienced a larger impact on out‑of‑pocket electricity spending as state government electricity rebates in Queensland and Western Australia were used up. Employee households, whose main income comes from wages and salaries, saw living costs rise by 2.3% over the year, the smallest increase across the household types measured. These households were the most affected by lower mortgage interest charges, which are a larger component of their spending. “Mortgage interest charges fell 6.4% in the 12 months to the December 2025 quarter, as banks cut interest rates for both variable and new fixed rate home loans following the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) decision to lower the cash rate target in February, May, and August 2025,” Marquardt said.
On a quarterly basis, the ABS reported that the rise in living costs across all household types slowed in the December 2025 quarter compared with the September quarter. Lower electricity and health costs offset rises in other expenditure categories. This reflected the timing of Commonwealth Energy Bill Relief Fund (EBRF) extension payments and lower out‑of‑pocket spending on pharmaceutical products and medical and hospital services. All household types recorded falls in health costs over the quarter. The ABS attributed this to a higher proportion of households reaching the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme safety net threshold and the expansion of the bulk‑billing incentive program, both of which reduced direct expenses.
Households that rely mainly on government payments saw the smallest quarterly rise in living costs, partly because health‑related spending has a larger weight in their budgets. Employee households recorded a 0.2% quarterly increase, with a 2.8% fall in mortgage interest charges absorbing some of the rises elsewhere. From the June 2025 quarter to the December 2025 quarter, the Consumer Price Index rose 1.9%, while the Pensioner and Beneficiary Living Cost Index rose 1.4%. These measures continue to be used in adjusting government pensions, which are indexed on March 20 and Sept. 20 by the higher of the PBLCI and CPI and benchmarked to Male Total Average Weekly Earnings. The combination of the ABS data and the forthcoming Modern Australia Index points to a continued focus on how benefit design, pricing, and distribution strategies reflect both demographic change and ongoing pressure on household budgets.
