Superannuation funds boards have been drawn into the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority’s (APRA’s) scrutiny of claims handling as part of the fall-out resulting from the CommInsure allegations.
APRA chairman, Wayne Byres has confirmed to a Parliamentary Committee that in circumstances where a number of the allegations around CommInsure’s claims handling procedures involved group insurance, this would involve superannuation fund trustees.
He told the Parliamentary Committee that APRA had written to the boards of all active life insurers to seek information about the effectiveness of their governance and oversight mechanisms for matters such as claims handling, benefit definitions, rejected claims, and customer complaints.
“We similarly wrote to a selection of superannuation trustees, as some of the claimants that had experienced unacceptable outcomes were members of group risk schemes via their superannuation funds,” he said.
Byres said APRA’s work around the issues was ongoing.
