15 November 2021
Spring and summer can often be unstable seasons in Australia, but as many parts of the country emerge from yet another wild weekend of weather it seems like we’re getting more than our fair share at the moment...
08 November 2021
Carbon emission reduction pledges from world leaders will not by themselves save the planet from climate change peril. Similar promises have been made in the past, only to fail dismally, upended by domestic political roadblocks...
01 November 2021
Move over COVID. Insurers in Australia and globally have a more pressing viral threat on their radar – one that has already stoked geopolitical fears of a new Cold War that could be fought, not with nuclear weapon launch codes, but with the click of a mouse...
25 October 2021
An expected recovery in insurers’ profitability didn’t go to plan last financial year but with premiums rising and pandemic business interruption claim risks factored in, the anticipated rebound is likely back on track...
18 October 2021
Insurers can be an easy target when things go wrong – and responses to the current ransomware epidemic illustrate the point perfectly...
11 October 2021
After the shock of losing the first business interruption test launched last year there must have been much industry relief on Friday as the Federal Court handed down a judgment that went overwhelmingly in favour of insurers...
04 October 2021
The partial collapse of a building front in Melbourne and shaking felt in several states following the Victorian earthquake is a warning against complacency about a risk for which Australians are generally unprepared...
27 September 2021
The topic of broker commissions receives some different treatment in the Trowbridge report released by the Insurance Council of Australia, compared with other recent reviews that have raised industry hackles...
20 September 2021
Actions matter a whole lot more in the post-Hayne royal commission era, and promises to do right by consumers are no longer enough...
13 September 2021
Swiss Re has taken a look to the end of the year, and two decades further ahead, as current trends herald changes that will transform the industry into the future...
06 September 2021
Could the COVID pandemic be an unlikely catalyst to end what historian Geoffrey Blainey once dubbed Australia’s “tyranny of distance"?...
30 August 2021
Has the corporate regulator gone soft? The Australian Securities and Investments Commission may have inadvertently given that impression with the release last week of its annual report outlining the regulator’s priorities for the next four years...
23 August 2021
Another set of Hayne royal commission reforms is set to come into effect in October, building on other changes implemented since the start of the year such as the application of unfair contract terms laws to insurance contracts in April...
16 August 2021
Headline financial results last week presented diverging stories for Suncorp and IAG, with the former basking in a better-than-expected outcome and IAG hit by organisational and risk management failures...
09 August 2021
After an adverse legal decision on business interruption cover and the pandemic in the first test case, insurers may gain some confidence from a Federal Court judgment handed down on a different matter in their favour...
02 August 2021
With just weeks now to wait for the report from an independent review of its operations by Treasury, the tone of Australian Financial Complaints Authority ombudsmen at a two-day member forum last week was conciliatory and amenable...
26 July 2021
IAG jumped out the gates early to deliver preliminary full-year financial results last week and in doing so has offered a window into some of the issues that the industry is dealing with as insurance affordability and availability concerns show few signs of easing...
19 July 2021
The coronavirus is proving to be a formidable foe to crush. More than a year into the public health crisis, the world is still struggling to hold the virus at bay as more infectious variants emerge, seeding new waves of transmissions...
12 July 2021
Before the collapse of 158-year old banker Lehman Brothers in 2008 and the subprime loans fiasco, diversity and inclusion wasn’t top of the agenda in financial services...
05 July 2021
In an exercise that took longer than usual to complete because of the COVID disruption, Australia’s insurers finally have a new code of practice in place – one that has been comprehensively updated and rewritten to provide for much-improved consumer protections in the post-Hayne royal commission landscape...