{"id":36649,"date":"2017-03-31T10:00:36","date_gmt":"2017-03-30T23:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/?p=36649"},"modified":"2017-04-05T08:07:11","modified_gmt":"2017-04-04T21:07:11","slug":"36649","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/2017\/03\/31\/36649\/","title":{"rendered":"Life Code Will Fail Without Improved Consumer Outcomes"},"content":{"rendered":"

The creation of an industry code of practice is only the first step to improving the life insurance sector with the true test being improved consumer outcomes, the FSC has been cautioned at its recent Life Insurance Conference.<\/p>\n

\"ASIC<\/a>
ASIC Deputy Chair, Peter Kell<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The warning was given by ASIC Deputy Chair, Peter Kell<\/strong> and two lawyers who represent insurance claimants with each stating life insurers still had some way to go to win back the trust of consumers.<\/p>\n

Speaking on a panel\u00a0about the FSC Life Insurance Code of Practice, Kell said it had the potential to play an important role and ASIC looked forward to working with the life insurance sector to advance the Code.<\/p>\n

Kell said the key test for the Code was how it aligned with consumer outcomes which had been an area of failure within financial services in recent years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe key test for a document like this is not going to be how you will adhere to clauses but that the code sets out some commitments to how you think your industry should behave,\u201d Kell said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt sets out commitments to how you think consumers should be dealt with and treated. It sets out the standards you want to meet as a sector that go beyond the minimum standards of the law,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe key issue over time is going to be are the commitments and promises in the code aligning with how things work in practice,\u201dKell said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there is misalignment between what people are told financial services providers will do and what happens in practice, that is where self-regulatory codes break down,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"Financial<\/a>
Financial Rights Legal Centre Principal Solicitor, Alexandra Kelly<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Financial Rights Legal Centre Principal Solicitor, Alexandra Kelly<\/strong> said the presence of lawyers in the claims process was evidence that change needed to occur in that area and the proof of the Code\u2019s success would be a decline in legal representation during claims.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe proof will ultimately be once it is in operation and how insurers give effect to the provisions of the Code.\u00a0 The proof will be whether there is an over reliance on the exceptional circumstances clauses when it comes to timeframes and delays,\u201d Kelly said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the proof will also be consumers no longer call me asking me where their claim is in the process,\u201d Kelly added.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe key issue over time is going to be are the commitments and promises in the code aligning with how things work in practice”<\/h6>\n

Herbert Smith Freehills Special Counsel, Claire Machin<\/strong> told life insurers they had to be careful and avoid seeing the Code as merely repeating the law.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are parts of the Code that repeat existing law and there may be temptation to say \u2018if we meet the law, we meet the Code obligations\u2019,\u201d Machin said<\/p>\n

\u201cThat approach is foolhardy, because the code is not law, it is a piece of self-regulation. It is a framework that is responsible to feedback and iterations and changes in consumer expectations and things that become issues in the consumer experience,\u201d Machin added.<\/p>\n

She also cautioned life insurers around overthinking the Code and looking at its provisions and statements, and conducting a line by line analysis on whether a company\u2019s systems met the requirements of the code.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt that point, it would be important to step back and look at the objectives of code and its principles and the statements of intent around what the consumer experience should be,\u201d Machin said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The creation of an industry code of practice is only the first step to improving the life insurance sector with the true test being improved consumer outcomes, the FSC has been cautioned at its recent Life Insurance Conference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":36661,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[282,8,241],"tags":[4247],"class_list":["post-36649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-associations","category-compliance-regulation","category-conferences-and-events","tag-feature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}