With the HIH Royal Commission building up a head of steam, the insurers are looking to present a united industry face. Their latest move is to invite the Institute of Actuaries, ARIMA and NIBA to climb on board its legal bandwagon.

But it won’t be a free ride. ICA Executive Director Alan Mason said the invitation to the three key insurance groups to “join in our application for representation” involves some kind of cost-sharing arrangement.

It’s a formidable front the underwriters are putting up. Phillips Fox Senior Counsel Peter Garling will lead a formidable legal team, and Sydney PR agency Jackson Wells Morris will handle the spin-doctoring with the media.

None of that comes cheap. Estimates of the likely cost of the ICA exercise are now around $2.5 million. Interested groups and individuals have until September 19 to decide exactly how – and if – they will be represented. 

While the three organisations invited to join ICA will obviously have an intense interest in the royal commission proceedings, their members’ concerns have not been as central to the causes and effects of the HIH collapse.

Meanwhile, the royal commission’s own legal team and its researchers are busy getting basic facts together and reviewing the short applications from parties wishing to participate.