Insurance
ob体育 regulates insurance and expects your insurer to treat you honestly and fairly. Find out about ob体育鈥檚 role in insurance and how to deal with insurance disputes.
- How ob体育 regulates insurance
- Insurance Product Disclosure Statements (PDS)
- Resolving problems with insurance companies
- Insurance codes of conduct
How ob体育 regulates insurance
ob体育鈥檚 role is to ensure that insurers and insurance brokers:
- offer insurance efficiently, honestly and fairly
- employ qualified staff who are trained to perform their role
- use advertising to inform consumers, rather than to mislead them
- give consumers the proper product disclosures and do so at the right time
- promptly submit the reportable situation/s to ob体育 via the ob体育 Regulatory Portal
- handle any complaints properly including by accepting the decisions of the .
We license and regulate insurers and take action against insurers who fail to comply with the financial services laws. Including when insurers are being misleading or deceptive or are acting unconscionably.
ob体育 expects insurers to:
- treat customers honestly and fairly
- always put customers鈥� interests before their commercial interests
- only offer customers products and services that deliver value for money
- assess insurance claims promptly and pay eligible claims
- compensate customers if they conduct themselves poorly and customers incur losses as a result.
We generally do not act for individuals and only take action where it will result in a greater market impact and benefit the general public more broadly. For more information see ob体育鈥檚 approach to enforcement Information Sheet 151.
Insurance Product Disclosure Statements (PDS)
It鈥檚 a legal requirement for insurers to provide a product disclosure statement for every financial services product they offer.
ob体育 sets the regulatory standards for PDSs, to ensure that they are clear, accurate and comprehensive. A PDS provides important information - on exclusions, caps, limits and other conditions 鈥� that consumers need when comparing and choosing the best insurance product.
While ob体育 doesn鈥檛 act on behalf of individuals, we can and do take action against providers that fail to provide PDSs or produce PDSs or other public statements about their products that are misleading.聽
Visit ob体育鈥檚 Moneysmart website for tips for buying different types of .
Resolving problems with insurance companies
There are three steps you can take to resolve issues with your insurance company:
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Contact the insurer聽- Explain the issue to them by phone, in person, or in writing.
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Make a formal complaint聽- If you are not happy with their response or if the problem can't be resolved, ask for their complaints handling procedure and put your complaint in writing. 聽Use Moneysmart鈥檚聽tips to help you .
- Complain to AFCA聽- If you don't receive a response in a reasonable time or you're unhappy with the response, you can make a complaint to the聽.
We also have specific guidance on how to deal with disputes about life insurance.
Help for Indigenous consumers
For help with making your complaint, you can contact ob体育's on 1300 365 957.
Insurance codes of conduct
To progress your complaint you could refer to the insurance codes of conduct. A code of conduct (or a code of practice) is a set of enforceable rules setting out an industry鈥檚 commitments to deliver a certain standard of practice. ob体育 does not approve or enforce these particular codes.
Codes of conduct are intended to raise industry standards and complement legislative requirements and encourage consumer confidence.
Here are the Insurance Codes of Conduct:
If you believe that an insurer has breached one of these codes, you can report your concerns to the .