Heron Announces Top Rated Super Products for 2010

Released: 8 February, 2010

The Heron Partnership has released the outcome of its latest half-yearly assessment of major superannuation products. The 2010 assessment covered 115 retail/personal products (56 master trust products & 59 industry fund products) and 38 master trust and industry fund products specifically designed for the corporate superannuation market.

Through this assessment The Heron Partnership has awarded 65 retail/personal products and 26 corporate products with their highest general award of 5 Stars for 2010.

Heron’s next annual assessment of Eligible Rollover Funds will be released in April and their next assessment of pension products will be released in July.

Chris Butler, Managing Director of The Heron Partnership said, “We are delighted to announce that Care Super and ING Corporate Super have once again achieved the highest numeric rating for their respective product category in our 2010 assessment and as a consequence received the Top Rated Product award”.

Heron’s Top Rated Superannuation Products for 2010

Mr Butler said “This is the 6th occasion that CareSuper has been judged as the Top Rated Retail/Personal Product and the 7th consecutive occasion that ING Corporate Super has achieved this award.”

The assessment of retail and corporate superannuation products undertaken by Heron covers about 130 key product features that are grouped under 5 Areas of Importance of Investment Arrangements, Insurance, Contributions, Ancillary Benefits and Communications. Investments and Insurance have the greatest impact on a product’s score with respective weightings of 55% and 30%.

When releasing the ratings for 2010, Mr Butler, said “The primary goal of the Heron Quality Star Ratings is to provide a realistic and objective representation of the strengths and weaknesses of a product. The ratings are based on feature specific benchmarks which guide Heron’s assessors to rate the feature objectively, with all products therefore being rated on the exact same basis. The ratings for each feature are aggregated to an overall numeric rating for each product”.

The Heron Partnership’s product research and assessments are provided through their Heron Advisor internet based research service. This research service is utilised by product issuers, dealer groups and financial planners as a superannuation research tool, for superannuation advice and corporate super tenders.