Macquarie Life has upgraded its FutureWise and Active insurance products, based on adviser feedback since the launch of Active two years ago.

"As a result of providing both a traditional life insurance product through FutureWise, and offering a new category of life insurance through Active, we have been able to clearly identify what elements of both are most in demand and enhance the two products," said Justin Delaney, head of Macquarie Life.

"Through these latest updates we, we are pleased to be sharing the features that are in demand across both products to bring together the best of both worlds," he said.

Macquarie Life is introducing the extended activities of daily living (extended ADLs) concept from Active into FutureWise as an alternative tier with the any occupation, own occupation and domestic duties definition of total and permanent disability (TPD) insurance.

This means the defined approach to assess disability will include an objective measure for assessing impairment based on the ability to perform extended ADLs and, in some cases, will mean that occupational assessment may not be required. The full TPD benefit will be paid if the insured person cannot perform four of the six extended ADL categories.

Active has also been enhanced, with occupational impairment being introduced as a benefit category A Health Event, which will be applied to claims that do not fall within another health event category under the policy.

A definition of own occupation, any occupation or domestic duties will be applied to each eligible policy based on the applicant's occupation and hours worked.

In addition to the ADL, occupation and Health Events updates, further improvements are also being made to FutureWise and Active.

Within FutureWise, a new feature, called the Partial Impairment option, is being introduced which provides partial payments for an inability to perform a specified number of extended ADLs.