The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has estimated it will collect about $24.702 million in levies from the general and life insurance sector for supervisory work carried out in the last financial year.

ASIC released the estimates in its final 2020/21 Cost Recovery Implementation Statement (CRIS) released last week.

The regulator consulted in July on the draft CRIS, an exercise it has carried out annually since the government announced in April 2016 the introduction of an industry funding model for the corporate watchdog.

The $24.702 million estimate is the same as previously flagged in the draft CRIS, of which $16.113 million will be collected from cost recovery levies and $8.589 million from statutory levies.

ASIC has however trimmed the forecast it expects to collect from the overall financial services industry, to $337.553 million from $359.6 million.

The actual levies will be published next month, with issuance of invoices to follow in January.

The CRIS has been prepared on the basis of ASIC’s planned regulatory work and estimated levies to recover regulatory costs at the beginning of the 2020/21 financial year.

The indicative levies for 2020/21 are a guide only and there will be differences between indicative and actual regulatory costs, once known.

“This may be due to changes in our operating environment and the conduct of our regulated population during the year that requires us to adapt to new developments and emerging threats and harms,” ASIC said.

“It may also be driven by the changing nature of enforcement matters as they progress through the stages of investigation and litigation.”

The CRIS estimates insurance product providers will pay about $14.837 million in cost recovery levy and $6.278 million in statutory levy. It does not provide a breakdown for general and life product providers.

ASIC says in the preceding 2019/20 financial year it cost $18.1 million in total to regulate insurance product providers.

Insurance product distributors – where a flat levy applies – will pay about $2.408 million in cost recovery levy and $2.208 million in statutory levy.

The cost of regulating insurance product distributors in 2019/20 was $3.9 million, ASIC said.

Click here for the CRIS.