Lawyers point finger at insurers on TPD
Insurance companies and the manner in which some of them put super fund members through "the wringer" are more responsible for the problems impacting Total and Permanent Disability (TPD) insurance products than the involvement of lawyers.
That is the assessment of a principal of leading plaintiff law firm, Maurice Blackburn, Peter Koutsoukis who has written a column for Money Management's sister publication, Super Review, defending the role of lawyers in the group insurance space and denying suggestions that high levels of lawyer activity had undermined the viability of the TPD insurance regime.
Instead, Koutsoukis points to the claims handling processes of the major insurers, particularly those servicing retail funds, to suggest that superannuation fund members who seek to make claims are being put through the "wringer".
"Obviously not all group insurers are the same, and not every claimant is put through the wringer, but there are at least a dozen insurers, in particular retail funds, whose conduct is well short of reasonable when processing claims," Koutsoukis writes.
His comments have come little more than a week out from a Super Review breakfast which will openly question what has gone wrong with the TPD regime and the role of lawyers.
"Industry leaders have recently been complaining about the claims process being disrupted and made more complicated by the actions of lawyers. I wholeheartedly reject this argument," Koutsoukis wrote. One only needs to look at what the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority (APRA) has been saying about the industry to see that it needs to get its own house in order before pointing the finger at advocates who provide legal help to injured and sick people struggling to deal with a complex claims process and hostile insurance industry."
Koutsoukis has suggested in his column that a code of conduct for claims management, similar to that used in other areas of insurance would be a good start towards addressing the problems of the group life/risk sector.
"Law firms who work in superannuation are keen to discuss a Code of Conduct with super funds and insurers to improve [the] conduct of all industry participants," he wrote
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