The Australian insurance market has seen a period of prolonged hardening that has shifted from primarily rate increases to now deductible movement and coverage contraction, notes Aon, a leading glob
The bushfire season has highlighted the importance of accessible and affordable insurance coverage, Dr Sean Carmody, APRA executive director, Cross-Industry Insights and Data Division, said yesterday at a hearing held by the Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Public Administration, which is conducting an inquiry into the lessons to be learned in relation to the devastating Australian bushfire season 2019-20.
The prosthesis market in Australia needs major reform because private hospital insurance pays out more than A$2bn ($1.55bn) each year in benefit payments for prostheses, accounting for more than 12% of all benefit payments, says the non-partisan Grattan Institute, a think tank dedicated to developing high quality public policy for Australia's future.
Six of Australia's largest banking and financial services institutions have paid or offered a total of A$1.24 billion (US$961.5 million) in compensation, as at 31 December 2020, to customers who suffered loss or detriment because of fees for no service misconduct or non-compliant advice, according to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).
The Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) yesterday welcomed the commencement of proceedings in the Federal Court of Australia to test the application of further issues in relation to pandemic coverage in business interruption policies.
Risk management is a significant area of growth for Australia's actuaries as the private and government sectors and the economy and jobs market recover from the impact of COVID-19 according to Actuaries Institute of Australia's incoming president Jefferson Gibbs.
Both the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) and Master Builders Australia (MBA) have committed to working with the government to improve information sharing between the sectors, and to improving consumer information on housing resilience.
Australia's terrorism insurance scheme, administered by the Australian Reinsurance Pool Corporation (ARPC) , has renewed its retrocession reinsurance programme for the 2021 calendar year. The A$3.475bn ($2.73bn) retrocession reinsurance programme, plus ARPC's net assets and the A$10bn Commonwealth guarantee, provides scheme capacity in the event of a declared terrorism incident, against commercial and eligible property assets of just under A$14bn.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has outlined some concerns over Aon's $30bn bid for Willis Towers Watson (WTW) to create the world's largest insurance broker.
As Australian courts consider the effectiveness of pandemic exclusions found in many BI insurance policies, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has been closely monitoring the potential prudential implications of this issue, says the regulator in the "General Insurance" chapter in its "Year in Review 2020" report released recently.