Gregory Martin, Chief Actuary & Risk Officer at ClearView Wealth Limited, is being questioned over unsolicited calls, aggressive sales tactics and hefty bonuses offered to staff at the company’s call centres selling life insurance products, admitting ClearView may have broken the law up to 303,000 times. Recorded on 10 and 11 September 2018 at the Owen Dixon Commonwealth Law Courts Building in Melbourne.

Jason Storey, Chief Operating Officer of Claims Handling at Youi, is being questioned over how the insurer handled the claims of Sacha Murphy and Glen Sutton, two Youi customers whose houses were damaged in storms. Recorded on 19 and 20 September 2018 at the Owen Dixon Commonwealth Law Courts Building in Melbourne.

Lori Callahan, Chief Risk Officer at Allianz, is being questioned over the state of the compliance function within the Australian arm of the company, including how Alllianz commissioned an independent review of its culture, but then handed the report back because it didn’t like the findings. Recorded on 18 September 2018 at the Owen Dixon Commonwealth Law Courts Building in Melbourne.

Benjamin Bessell, executive general manager of business distribution at Insurance Australia Group (IAG), is being questioned over add-on car insurance sold by IAG’s subsidiary Swann Insurance — agreeing that many of these products are of questionable or little value to the consumer — and how IAG was monitoring whether or not its authorised representatives were complying with financial services laws.

Helen Troup, the Executive General Manager of Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s insurance division CommInsure, is being questioned over deliberately leaving heart attack definitions out of date so that CommInsure could refuse claims, knocking back the claim of a breast cancer survivor due to some odd interpretations on what constituted “radical breast surgery”, misleading the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) during its investigation of a customer complaint, running a series of deceptive and misleading adverts that included outdated heart attack definitions, and on how the corporate regulator ASIC gave CommInsure the chance to change a media release and negotiate the consequences of that misleading advertising.

Bernadette Heald, a Suncorp insurance customer, gives evidence on how she and her family were forced to live in a house falling apart from flood damage during a long-running stand-off with the insurer, which initially offered them just A$30,000 to fix the cracking, disintegrating home. Recorded on 20 September 2018 at the Owen Dixon Commonwealth Law Courts Building in Melbourne.

Lachlan Ross, the head of insurance delivery services at industry super fund REST, is being questioned over REST handing back an insurance payout to global insurance company AIA rather than passing it on to a paraplegic because she had not notified the fund that she had ceased working, as well as another REST member who suffered post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from multiple stab wounds and was also denied a payment because his balance fell below A$3,000.

Sacha Murphy, a young mum whose house in Broken Hill was severely damaged during a hail storm in 2016, gives evidence on how insurance company Youi took 18 months to fix her roof. Recorded on 19 September 2018 at the Owen Dixon Commonwealth Law Courts Building in Melbourne.

Glen Sutton, a resident of Cannonvale (Queensland) whose home was severely damaged by Cyclone Debbie in 2017, gives evidence on how he is still waiting for repairs to be done by his insurance company Youi. Recorded on 19 September 2018 at the Owen Dixon Commonwealth Law Courts Building in Melbourne.

Paul Sainsbury, Group Executive Wealth Solutions & Chief Customer Officer at AMP, is being questioned over Australia’s largest wealth manager charging A$1.3 million in premiums for life insurance to more than 4,600 superannuation customers it knew had died. Recorded on 17 September 2018 at the Owen Dixon Commonwealth Law Courts Building in Melbourne.

Short statement by Commissioner Kenneth Hayne followed by Senior Counsel Assisting Rowena Orr’s opening address for the sixth round of public hearings at the Australian Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry. This round considered issues associated with the sale and design of life insurance and general insurance products, the handling of claims under life insurance and general insurance policies, and the administration of life insurance by superannuation trustees.

Senior counsel assisting Rowena Orr gives observations about the handling of claims in the life insurance industry in Australia. Recorded on 12 September 2018 at the Owen Dixon Commonwealth Law Courts Building in Melbourne.