{"id":40394,"date":"2018-04-03T16:54:12","date_gmt":"2018-04-03T05:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/?p=40394"},"modified":"2018-04-04T07:31:06","modified_gmt":"2018-04-03T20:31:06","slug":"industry-slow-to-respond-to-pjc-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/2018\/04\/03\/industry-slow-to-respond-to-pjc-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Industry Slow to Respond to PJC Report"},"content":{"rendered":"

The life insurance sector has been slow to respond to the release of the final report of the PJC Inquiry into Life Insurance, with only four insurers and one industry body making public statements on the report.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>To date, only\u00a0TAL, MLC, ANZ, ClearView and the Financial Services Council (FSC) have made comments on the report which was released last Tuesday, in a working week which was\u00a0shortened due to Easter.<\/p>\n

MLC Life Insurance stated that it \u201c\u2026particularly welcomes recommendations for the industry to transition to more open approved product lists (APL)\u201d as well as the use of real-time disclosure that would allow consumers to track the progress of their claims.<\/p>\n

The insurer also backed recommendations for the rationalisation of legacy products and allowing life insurers to become involved in funding rehabilitation services and processes earlier than currently allowed.<\/p>\n

…MLC Life \u201c\u2026particularly welcomes recommendations for the industry to transition to more open approved product lists”<\/h6>\n

\u201cMLC Life Insurance has long advocated for changing legislation that prevents life insurers from funding treatment to help support people return to health and their life, including their employment,\u201d the insurer stated.<\/p>\n

TAL stated it also supported, in principle, the call for the rationalisation of legacy products, the involvement of life insurers in rehabilitation, and broader APLs, as well as improved claims processes and the engagement of dedicated mental health expertise in the claims process.<\/p>\n

We also continue to work closely with the FSC, regulators and various working committees to make meaningful progress on a number of areas referenced in the report, including mental health, medical information and the use of genetic testing,\u201d TAL Group CEO & Managing Director, Brett Clark<\/strong> said.<\/p>\n

ANZ, Group Executive – Wealth, Alexis George<\/strong> welcomed the release of the PJC Report and said a number of recommendations within it should be included in the next version of the Life Code set to be adopted by superannuation funds that offer life insurance.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would also be timely for the Australian Securities and Investments Commission to review and approve the Life Code given the positive consumer outcomes it could deliver,\u201d George said.<\/p>\n

“An open and transparent review process, followed by ASIC registration and enforcement will enhance the credibility of the Code and start to rebuild consumer trust and confidence in the life insurance industry,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Last week, ClearView released a brief statement on the PJC report using it to challenge the FSC\u2019s Approved Product List (APL) standard \u2013 which calls for a minimum of three insurance providers \u2013 and instead called for the Council to adopt open APL\u2019s among its members (see: FSC Welcomes PJC Report But ClearView Questions APL Standard<\/a>).<\/p>\n

In its response the FSC welcome calls for rationalisation of products and had already began to make changes in the areas of claims handling, medical definitions, mental health, and time-frames for dealing with customers and claims via its own Life Insurance Code of Practice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The life insurance sector has been slow to respond to the release of the final report of the PJC Inquiry into Life Insurance, with only four insurers and one industry body making public statements on the report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":40431,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[282,48,8,4,5],"tags":[4247],"class_list":["post-40394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-associations","category-company-news","category-compliance-regulation","category-products","category-services","tag-feature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40394","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=40394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40394\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}