CBA denies bad claims culture

CBA claims

6 March 2017
| By Malavika |
image
image
expand image

The Commonwealth Bank’s (CBA’s) wealth management division has rebuffed suggestions it has a culture of “deliberately avoiding paying customers”, adding independent reviews painted a different picture to some of the commentary and media reports.

In her opening remarks to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services, Life Insurance Industry, group executive, wealth management, Annabel Spring acknowledged the division committed mistakes for which “we apologise and we will make right”.

However, Spring refuted allegations that claims staff received financial incentives for declining claims, and said there was no evidence that medical opinions were tampered with to deny claims, or that claims staff pressured doctors to change their opinions to deny claims.

“There is no evidence that claims staff ‘cherry pick’ doctors to provide medical opinions to deny claims,” Spring said.

Referring to concerns raised about CommInsure in media report last year, Spring said the CommInsure Board commissioned various reviews to independently investigate the issues raised, including a Deloitte report released last week.

That review did not identify any systemic issues in relation to historically denied claims and found no evidence “the claims handling processes were designed in a way that could systemically deliver poor customer outcomes”.

“Now, we are not perfect and mistakes were identified. For those mistakes that were made, we apologise and we will make it right,” Spring said.

“Also, at our request, the report suggested improvements to our claims processes which we are already implementing.”

Spring also suggested reforms to life insurance that would make it simpler and cheaper for customers, including the use of plain English as highlighted in the Life Code and regulatory assistance to apply standardised definitions, legal changes to enable rationalising of legacy products and reduce costs to customers, and the ability for the firm to provide rehabilitation support to enable them to return to work and avoid mental health issues.

 

Read more about:

AUTHOR

Recommended for you

sub-bgsidebar subscription

Never miss the latest news and developments in wealth management industry

MARKET INSIGHTS

Completely agree Peter. The definition of 'significant change is circumstances relevant to the scope of the advice' is s...

3 weeks 5 days ago

This verdict highlights something deeply wrong and rotten at the heart of the FSCP. We are witnessing a heavy-handed, op...

1 month ago

Interesting. Would be good to know the details of the StrategyOne deal....

1 month ago

Insignia Financial has confirmed it is considering a preliminary non-binding proposal received from a US private equity giant to acquire the firm. ...

1 week 3 days ago

Six of the seven listed financial advice licensees have reported positive share price growth in 2024, with AMP and Insignia successfully reversing earlier losses. ...

5 days 22 hours ago

Specialist wealth platform provider Mason Stevens has become the latest target of an acquisition as it enters a binding agreement with a leading Sydney-based private equi...

5 days 2 hours ago