The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) recommendation for a national home insurance comparison website won’t do anything to assist the affordability issue in northern Australia.

That’s the view of the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA), which says a website would probably make the affordability worse rather than better.

The ACCC published its final report late last year following a three-year inquiry into insurance affordability in northern Australia, making 38 recommendations.

In a response dated April 30 but only published in recent days, ICA outlines a number of proposals that it does not support. On the recommendation for a national home insurance comparison website it is particularly critical, saying:

“The ACCC report itself provided evidence that, given the competitive market dynamics for insurance in northern Australia, price comparison websites would likely act to put upward (rather than downward) pressure on premiums,” it says.

“The insurance market in northern Australia is comprised of a small number of insurers who are each seeking to limit their exposure to natural perils through distribution and pricing strategies.”

ICA also disputed a recommendation to ban broker commissions, but was supportive of others including abolishing insurance stamp duty, expanding the remit of the Australian Building Codes Board to include property protection, and standardising definitions of prescribed events.

See the full response here.

The Federal Government has yet to respond to the ACCC’s report, which was published on December 28.