Confidence on industry unanimity on insurance code

Both the Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees (AIST) and the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA) are confident virtually all their member funds will sign up to the Insurance inside Superannuation code of conduct, notwithstanding some ongoing reservations.

The chief executives of both organisations, AIST’s Eva Scheerlinck and ASFA’s Dr Martin Fahy, said they believed that their members would sign up because the code represented a necessary starting point which would help avoid the need for prescriptive regulation.

The chairman of the Insurance inside Superannuation Working Group (ISWG), former TAL chief executive, Jim Minto described the code as a future minimum standard for the industry but acknowledged that it was neither compulsory nor enforceable.

“We wanted it to be enforceable but that was not something we had the power to achieve,” he said. “But it is the right first step.”

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Fahy said he believed too much was being made of the absence of enforceability in circumstances where a principles-based approach would always trump prescription.

The trio told the Conference of Major Superannuation Funds in Brisbane that a number of significant funds had signed up to the code and they expected many more to follow.