ASIC not done with CommInsure yet
CommInsure will reconsider life insurance claims dating back to October 2012 relating to heart attacks, following ASIC scrutiny.The insurance arm of Commonwealth Bank's wealth management division remains subject to investigation by ASIC on a couple of fronts, though the corporate regulator yesterday refuted, in the main, a series of allegations levelled in reports by Fairfax Media and ABC in early 2016.These allegations inspired ASIC's work into CommInsure's practices, including reviewing over 60,000 documents and interviewing staff.ASIC said it "found no evidence to support allegations that CommInsure claims managers applied undue pressure on doctors to change or alter their medical opinions."Another pillar of media charges against CommInsure also wilted."We did not find any evidence to suggest that medical opinions stored on the database were deleted or altered by staff outside the Medical Risk Team, other than for appropriate administrative functions."CommInsure has paid more than A$2.5 million to 17 eligible customers previously declined trauma claims, the bank said at the end of February.CommBank then released a report by Deloitte commissioned following reports by ABC and Fairfax on CommInsure's claims handling practices."Our work did not identify any systemic issues relating to historically declined claims," Deloitte said.ASIC is continuing to investigate concerns that CommInsure's advertising and promotion of life insurance policies to consumers contained potentially misleading or deceptive information in the period before March 2016.