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.
Six of Australia's largest banking and financial services institutions have paid or offered a total of A$1.24bn ($962.5m) 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, says the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).
The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) intends to intensify its focus on areas of the superannuation industry that will be familiar to the public and where it is clear there is more work to do - governance, underperformance and members' best interest.
Insurance Australia Group (IAG) has reported a A$460m ($356m) loss for the December half of the current financial year, hit by the pre-tax A$1.15bn expense announced in November for potential business interruption claims relating to COVID-19.
The Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) is undertaking a review of the insurance sector's options for reforms to improve its contribution to national economic recovery and growth, amid concern from insurers, stakeholders and the community about the availability and affordability of some categories of cover for certain groups of customers.