PPS Mutual’s profit-share pool reached $19.6 million at the end of 2025-26, up 30%, with a further $4.7 million assigned to members during the year, but on the figures the insurer released, fewer than 3% of its 18,000-plus members hold balances above $5,000. The cover is sold only through accredited independent financial advisers, which makes the spread of those balances, and the rules governing access to them, part of what advisers recommending PPS Mutual have to explain to clients.
Under the model, which PPS Mutual says is the only one of its kind in Australian life insurance, members may receive a share of profits based on operating margins, claims experience and investment returns, so allocations are not guaranteed. The $4.7 million assigned in 2025-26 was 24% higher than the previous year’s allocation and the tenth consecutive annual allocation. For the year, the insurer declared rates of 3.15% of premiums and 6.5% of opening balances. A year earlier it reported 3.5% of premiums and a 5% interest credit on balances, so the premium-linked rate fell while the balance-linked rate rose. Chief executive Michael Pillemer said ten consecutive allocations provide the empirical case that mutual ownership aligns insurer and insured.
The distribution of balances is more modest than the headline pool suggests. Spread evenly across 18,000 members, the pool would average about $1,090 each, although balances vary with policy age and premium. PPS Mutual said 489 members hold more than $5,000 (about 2.7%) and 131 more than $10,000 (about 0.7%), against a top balance of $54,000.
Membership has grown quickly, which helps explain the numbers. PPS Mutual passed 15,000 members in August 2025, and about 60% of its members are aged 40 or younger, Insurance Business reported at the time. The insurer began operating in Australia in 2016, so many balances have had little time to build, and the earliest members are only now approaching the ten-year mark that unlocks partial access.
Members must keep their policies for ten years before partial access, with withdrawals capped at 5% of the balance each year. Full access comes after 20 years, at age 65, or on death, terminal illness or other qualifying circumstances. So far 54 members have withdrawn more than $239,000 collectively, about $4,400 each on average. Five have accessed more than $10,000, 17 between $5,000 and $10,000, and 32 up to $5,000.
PPS Mutual reported an annual lapse rate of 6.4% against an industry average of 14.3%, and a Net Promoter Score of 54.8 against 9.5. The release marks the industry lapse figure with an asterisk, and PPS Mutual’s anniversary page ties the 14.3% to the rolling 12 months to December 2025, so the 6.4% may cover a different period. The insurer reported a lapse rate of 5.1% in its 2025 announcement and 5.4% for the 12 months to December 2025, so the latest figure is higher than both.
ASIC has noted that APRA calculates lapse rates by premium rather than policy number, so the measurement basis matters when comparing insurers. The ten-year access rule also works as a retention feature, which bears on any lapse comparison. The Net Promoter Score figures are identical to those PPS Mutual reported in 2025, when it said it had led the industry for three consecutive years. It now says four.
The company said 38 advisers now have more than $100,000 in combined client balances, up from 31 a year earlier, with eight advice firms above $500,000 (up from seven) and three above $1 million (unchanged). These are clients’ balances rather than adviser earnings. PPS Mutual distributes through a network of more than 2,000 independent advisers and says its in-force premiums are approaching $150 million.
The profit share is a discretionary, long-dated feature rather than a guaranteed benefit. The declared rates over several years, the access rules and the basis of the lapse comparison are the measures that decide how much weight it carries against price and cover. The comparison arrives when life insurers’ combined after-tax profit fell to $121 million in the March 2026 quarter from $332 million a year earlier, according to APRA data.
