Coalition leader Peter Dutton has reiterated his determination to divest insurance companies if he is advised a lack of competition is leading to consumer harm – despite colleagues appearing to rule out the move.

It is the latest twist in a confusing saga that started last month when Mr Dutton threatened divestment to make sure consumers facing soaring premiums “get a fair go”.

Shadow treasurer Angus Taylor later said the divestment policy was “confined to supermarkets and hardware”.

But this week Mr Dutton doubled down on his initial comments.

“There are businesses and families who are expected to pay $20,000 premiums for household insurance or for small business premiums. That is completely and utterly unacceptable,” he said on Tuesday.

“Our policy, and I’ll state it very clearly, is that if the advice to our government is that there is a concentration of power or market share vested in the big insurance companies in this country, and that concentration of market share has led to businesses and families not being able to get insurance cover or indeed has led to people paying astronomical prices for their premiums and therefore market failure, my government will act and we will divest if that’s what’s required to get competition into the marketplace.

“I’m not going to tolerate a situation where big insurance companies are lining their pockets with big profits while families are going without insurance or not able to sell their business because the bank won’t give them finance if there’s not an insurance policy in place.”

Yesterday Mr Dutton added there is “a serious problem with insurance in this country ... If my government gets advice that there is a concentration of market share that is distorting the insurance market, driving up premiums and meaning that people are being excluded from getting policies, then we will act, and we would act very quickly.”