Standard-form contracts covered by the Insurance Contracts Act 1984 are included in a review of Australian Consumer Law by Consumer Affairs Australia and New Zealand.

The organisation is a sub-committee of the Legislative and Governance Forum on Consumer Affairs, which consists of the Commonwealth, State, Territory and New Zealand ministers responsible for consumer policy.

The review will examine whether insurance contracts should be treated in the same way as other standard-form contracts.

It will also assess the current approach to determine if a term is “unfair” and if a standard-form contract is sufficiently clear, and if the protections should extend not only to particular unfair terms but to a contract that is unfair as a whole.

The Insurance Contracts Act 1984 does not include protections against unfair contract terms, but imposes other requirements such as the duty of utmost good faith.

The review is the first since the Australian Consumer Law took effect in January 2011.

“With five years having passed… now is the time to review whether the law is operating as intended, how effectively the law is being administered and whether the framework is sufficiently flexible to respond to new and emerging issues in the marketplace,” Consumer Affairs Australia and New Zealand Chairman Gary Clements said.

“These are important questions that will help us identify what has worked well and what could be improved.”

The Consumer Affairs Minister will receive an interim report in the second half of the year and a final report by March next year.

The closing date for submissions on the review is May 27.