The following are extracted from remarks by ASIC Commissioner Alan Kirkland at the Insurance Council of Australia Annual Conference on 10 October 2025. I have grouped the remarks under various headings for ease of reference. The full speech may be accessed here.
Claims handling – 2022 floods
It’s hard to forget those who let you down when you’ve had a hard time – and that was unfortunately the experience of many Australians in the aftermath of the 2022 floods.
“Some people, who turned to their insurer in their darkest hour after paying premiums for years, felt that they became engaged in an adversarial situation with a company meant to be on their side.”[9]
That quote is from the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics report into claims handling failures after the 2022 floods, which was handed down almost a year ago.
It’s fair to say that there remains a significant trust gap to be addressed following this report.
Reputation data from RepTrak[10] and Roy Morgan[11] suggests that insurance is among Australia’s most distrusted industries – and you only need to look at the testimony of individuals impacted to understand why.
David Norris, whose family owned the Central Hotel in Eugowra, told the inquiry after more than 60 years with their insurer it was apparent that “loyalty only goes one way[12].
This is the challenge that must be addressed by you as you try to “pitch your tent” in the middle of these storms – showing people like David that loyalty is a two-way street.
Areas of improvement in claims handling
As insurers though, you are in the business of recovery. You know that rebuilding doesn’t happen overnight. It takes continual effort and care. And we know from our latest review that some of you are putting in the work and starting to see some green shoots of recovery as a result of that work.
As noted recently by AFCA[13], the industry has made progress on reducing historically high complaint numbers, which should be commended.
And we have also observed some promising signs in our recent follow-up on Report 768 – which of course was the report that examined claims handling practices following the 2022 floods[14].
When that report was published, we found that poor communications, poor resourcing, and poor treatment of vulnerable customers were endemic across the insurance industry.
But it is clear that a lot of work has happened in the past two years in response to those findings.
For example, every insurer we looked at this time around had established a program to improve their approach to claims handling.
Most had introduced a single point of contact for claims, so customers didn’t have to tell their stories over and over again.
Some had gotten smarter about how they used their data to identify and support vulnerable customers, before and after major events.
And a few went beyond this – towards truly consumer-centric practices.
For example, we’ve seen some insurers appoint a dedicated consumer advocate to be a voice for customers inside their company.
Some have established specialist new teams dedicated to the handling of vulnerable consumers, sometimes with the help of external experts, to plug gaps before people fall through them.
I’ve called out these two practices in particular because it is important to walk in your customers’ shoes when improving claims handling practices in order to learn where the real stumbling blocks are.
There is clearly more work to do. Progress is still too slow on some measures, and uneven on others. But the process of change has begun, and we want you to continue that momentum.
Accuracy and transparency of premiums
The first [project] will examine the accuracy and transparency of premiums – in particular car insurance premiums.
That’s because this area is a clear pain point for your customers. According to ASIC’s internal dispute resolution data that you provide to us, motor vehicle insurance is the most complained about general insurance product – and premiums are the biggest category of complaint.
And as our recently commenced enforcement action against [insurer] shows[15], we are particularly concerned where insurers don’t make it easy for their customers to even understand how much their premium has changed from year to year.
ASIC can’t set insurance premiums, but we can hold insurers accountable for their pricing practices and the accuracy of their communications with their customers.
Our review will examine how insurers communicate premiums, to understand whether they are complying with their legal disclosure requirements. We will also engage with consumers to understand the challenges they face when they buy or renew car insurance.
Cash settlements
The other key area of focus for us is the use of cash settlements, which has already come up this morning.
The floods inquiry brought into sharp focus the challenges consumers can face when offered cash settlements.
Often inadequate settlements have left Australians holding the bag during what is a time of increased vulnerability for them[16].
Some individuals have only accepted these settlements because they don’t have the energy or the means to fight any longer.
To quote ARC Justice Chief Executive, Damien Stock, who gave evidence to the parliamentary inquiry:
“We’ve heard some horrible stories of children not wanting to get up in the morning because the warmest part of the shed that they’re living in is their bed and they don’t want to get out of their bed and be in the cold shed. Now, I am a parent. If I was a parent in those circumstances—fighting an insurance company over 12 months—and I was offered cash to stop my child feeling like that, I’d take cash.”[17]
So, the focus of our work this year will be to investigate the practices and disclosures surrounding these offers to better understand the risks to consumers during these periods of heightened vulnerability.
New GI Code of Practice
I was also particularly pleased to be informed of the decision that your new General Insurance Code of Practice will be enforceable by contract. This is an important step from a consumer protection perspective. After all, insurance is a promise – and promises have to mean something.
…it is a commendable step to make the general insurance code enforceable by contract. But if the provisions themselves do not improve overall levels of consumer protection, it will be a step backwards.
We often say at ASIC that simplicity equals enforceability, but at the same time, simple cannot be code for stripped out.
So my challenge to you over the next year is to get this new code right and to make it count. Commit to a code that will make a real difference to your customers.
Like the communities that you support, the insurance sector has shown remarkable resilience and capacity for rebuilding. But as the storms continue to swirl around us, it is critical that you build back better – and a meaningful code is the path towards this.
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