Insurance? What insurance?

The insurance industry is doing a poor job of tackling Australia’s chronic underinsurance problems, according to a significant proportion — 36 per cent — of CommInsure’s largest group risk clients.

The cost and level of cover and the types of benefits available were the top three factors respondents to the Commonwealth Bank insurance group’s May survey attributed to underinsurance.

CommInsure managing director Simon Swanson said the survey results reinforced what the company’s group risk clients — who make up the largest share of the group risk insurance market as a whole in terms of inflows — have been stressing for some time now.

“We hear time and time again that underinsurance is the number one issue in our industry. The industry has a lot of work to do to help Australians have the right level of insurance to fall back on when life’s nasty surprises arise.”

The 43 group risk clients who responded to the survey — mostly superannuation funds offering life risk insurance — said, when seeking an insurer, their main considerations were flexibility of the terms and conditions (95 per cent), the accuracy of the claims data (88 per cent) and pricing (88 per cent).

Respondents ranked CommInsure’s services ahead of the industry’s as a whole, with just over three-quarters (78 per cent) citing the company’s efforts to combat underinsurance as “good” or “exceptional”.

CommInsure’s head of wholesale risk Michael Back said he believed the company’s flexible terms and conditions and focus on customer service were major reasons it was rated ahead of the pack.

“In group risk especially, there’s no one-size-fits-all package. We worked with AustralianSuper, for example, to come up with an innovative solution for members that cover death, total and permanent disablement and income protection. As a result, AustralianSuper members have recently enjoyed benefit increases of between 10 and 100 per cent.”