Yahoo Finance Insurer refunds thousands of customers. Are you one of them?
Thousands of Australians are set to receive a financial boost after the corporate watchdog forced insurer Allianz to cough up $8 million in refunds.
More than 15,000 Australians will be reimbursed after purchasing consumer credit insurance products that they were unable to make a claim on for unemployment or disability, corporate regulator ASIC announced today.
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Customers who purchased death cover while younger than 21 will also be eligible for reimbursement as they were unlikely to require that cover, and customers who unwittingly paid monthly premiums without receiving appropriate information will also be up for a refund.
The refunds come after an ASIC review into the sale of consumer credit insurance [CCI] that ASIC was concerned were unfair or dishonest.
The remediation action covers a range of products sold by Allianz, including mortgage protection policies which purportedly provided cover against the risk of customers being unable to meet loan commitments due to illness, injury, involuntary unemployment and death.
“Disappointingly, our work on the sale of CCI has highlighted widespread mis-selling and poor product design,” ASIC commissioner Sean Hughes said.
“This remediation outcome is only one of many examples where CCI has failed consumers. We expect insurers to cease to sell insurance products that provide little or no value.
“We need a financial system that is fair. Insurers and other financial institutions need to rise to the challenge and embed the principle of fairness into their businesses to ensure we do not see any further instances of this kind of poor value product being pushed on to consumers.”
What will Allianz do now?
The insurer will refund premiums and interest for ineligible sales of disability and unemployment cover that occurred between 1 January 2011 and 31 December 2018, and will also reassess all withdrawn or rejected claims where the customer was ineligible for the policy when it was sold to them.
Additionally, Allianz will invite customers to submit claims if they haven’t yet done so.
It will also refund all premiums and interest to customers who purchased death cover while younger than 21 between 1 January 2011 and 31 December 2018, and maintain cover for active policyholders without charging for it.
Allianz will also stop issuing new CCI policies as of 30 September 2019, and will write to all affected consumers form October 2019.
The Yahoo Finance’s All Markets Summit will take place on the 26th September 2019 at the Shangri-La Hotel, Sydney. Check out the full line-up of speakers and agenda here.
