ASIC has released its Corporate Plan 2025-26.
ASIC Chair Joe Longo Mr Longo said the plan formalised ASIC’s focus on regulatory simplification. (Media Release 25-177MR)
‘A focus on simpler and better regulation is now a concrete part of ASIC’s 2025-29 plan and will see the agency continue that focus to make it easier to interact with ASIC, to understand our expectations, for us to administer the law, and ultimately to cut red tape.’
ASIC’s Corporate Plan also outlines how the agency is maturing its approach to measuring and assessing its performance, including introducing a new suite of performance measures.
‘This will help our stakeholders better understand ASIC’s impact,’ Mr Longo said.
Impacts for General Insurance
I have extracted the parts of ASIC’s Corporate Plan 2025-26 that impact general insurance.
12 month work
Guided by the strategic priorities set out in the plan, ASIC’s work over the next 12 months and beyond will include:
- driving regulatory reform to ensure the stability,
- fairness and transparency of our capital markets
- ensuring stable, secure and resilient market infrastructure
- pursuing continuous improvement in artificial intelligence (AI) governance and cyber security
- holding superannuation trustees accountable for Australians’ retirement savings, and
- reducing the regulatory burden on businesses.
2025-29 plan highlighting general insurance impacts
ASIC are focused on addressing the most significant issues in the regulatory environment and bolstering ASIC’s capabilities to achieve this. In 2025–29, work under ASIC’s key activities will be guided by five strategic priorities.
- Improve consumer outcomes
- Strengthen market disclosure and professional conduct
- Support better retirement outcomes and member services
- Strengthen operational digital and data resilience and safety
- Drive integrity and transparency across markets
Improve consumer outcomes – general insurance
- IDR – ASIC will review compliance by licensees with their obligations to report to ASIC on complaints, IDR processes, and outcomes. ASIC will continue publishing IDR data, a key part of the IDR reporting requirement.
- General insurance premiums – ASIC will examine the accuracy and transparency of general insurers’ disclosures about premiums and work to better understand consumer experiences.
- General insurance cash settlements – ASIC will review general insurers’ use of cash settlements to better understand the practices and disclosures surrounding the offers being made and to assess whether there are risks of consumer harm.
- Indigenous consumer outcomes – ASIC will maintain their Indigenous Outreach Program to ensure ASIC consider and understand the needs of Indigenous consumers responding to misconduct impacting Indigenous communities. ASIC will continue to build our understanding of how Indigenous communities are engaging with general insurance products and using these products to manage risks to assets of value.
Strengthen market disclosure and professional conduct
- Sustainability-related actions – ASIC will take regulatory or enforcement action, where necessary, to protect investors and consumers. ASIC will focus on greenwashing and complaints handling by insurers following severe weather events.
- Auditor independence and conflicts of interest – ASIC will continue to examine auditors’ compliance with their independence and conflicts of interest obligations and publish our surveillance findings.
- Director and officer conflicts of interest – ASIC will review the policies that companies have in place to manage conflicts of interest by directors and officers. We will report on good and poor practices observed.
- Whistleblower protections – ASIC will undertake a review benchmarking the whistleblower programs of a selection of companies and their compliance with the whistleblower protection provisions in the Corporations Act.
Strengthen operational digital and data resilience and safety
- Good practices for managing risk – ASIC will promote good practices for managing
- cyber and operational risks among ASIC’s regulated population. ASIC’s focus will be on geopolitical risks, incident response and internal communications, increasing the engagement and resilience of regulated entities, and cross-agency collaboration. ASIC will take enforcement action, where necessary, to protect investors and consumers with a focus on business, cyber and operational resilience, technology-enabled scams and misconduct, and poor use of AI.
Operational capabilities
Over the next four years, ASIC will focus on three operational capabilities to improve their effectiveness and efficiency as a regulator:
- Digital, technology and data Investing in use of data and digital technology to become a leading digitally enabled and data-informed regulator.
- Stabilising and uplifting the ASIC business registers – Delivering the RegistryConnect program to deliver reliable, secure, trusted and efficient registry services to support the economy for the benefit of all Australians
- Employee culture, capabilities and capacity Recruiting, developing and retaining talent to enhance ASIC’s culture, capabilities and capacity.
Simpler and better regulation
Navigating regulatory complexity is a significant challenge. ASIC are considering what they can do, within ASIC’s powers, in 2025–26 and beyond to simplify regulation and make the most difference.
Regulatory simplification report
ASIc will be issuing a report that will start an ongoing conversation about their program of simplification.
This report will cover:
- improving access to regulatory information through improving ASIC’s website, reviewing the approach to regulatory guidance and introducing sector-based regulatory roadmaps
- reducing complexity in regulatory instruments through simplifying and consolidating ASIC’s legislative instruments
- making it easier to transact with ASIC through improving ASIC’s approach to digital interactions, data requests and management of ASIC forms, and
- feasible and actionable law reform ideas to reduce red tape, including reforms to the reportable situations regime
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