The life tax changes are estimated to cost the industry $75m in profit a year, Tower's share of this would be around $7m. Under the changes existing life insurance policies can be grandfathered under the old laws for 5 years so most of the damage will be hidden for a while.

Will however give a short term bump in new business as policy holders scrambled to sign up for new policies and lock in their old premiums over the last couple of months. Just watch out for the inevitable drop post July 1. Be wary of any spin in the next report about "record levels of new business". Same kind of effect as the GST change only much larger. Premiums have risen from 5-22% across the industry.