What lessons should Australia’s life insurance industry learn from the devastating floods across Queensland, northern New South Wales and Victoria earlier this year?
Our latest poll question asks:
Has consumer perception of Australia’s life insurance industry been adversely impacted by fallout from the Queensland floods?
Another way we could have asked this question is whether you believe consumers separate the general insurance and life insurance industries when they think about ‘insurance’?
Immediately following the floods, the media and the Government highlighted the desperate plight of thousands of affected residents who mistakenly believed their insurance policies covered flood damage. They also singled out those who did have flood insurance but whose policy definitions did not cover them, in some cases, for the type of flooding that had occurred. The Government is currently addressing both these issues by creating simpler policy summaries and agitating for mandatory standard flood definitions.
Editorials and political cartoons in mainstream media depicted insurance companies – not general insurance companies, as lacking compassion and refusing to take care of their clients. We want to know whether your own clients have changed their opinion or approach towards their life insurance policies and needs as a result of the negative insurance industry publicity generated by fallout from the floods.
We also want to know what lessons you believe the life insurance industry should be learning. For example, should the life insurance industry commence a more serious debate about the prospect of standardising key life insurance definitions, especially within TPD and trauma insurance contracts?
But for this particular poll, our focus is mainly on perceptions. Do consumers see life insurance as different from general insurance? Has the life insurance industry ‘taken a hit’ because of wider general insurance issues arising from the January floods? Let us know what you think…
