The General Insurance Code Governance Committee has published a new report, Living the Code: Embedding Code obligations in compliance frameworks.

The report is the result of an inquiry into insurers’ practices and builds on the work of the Financial Services Royal Commission to provide valuable guidance on how to place the Code – and the Code’s purpose of doing the right thing by consumers – at the heart of all strategy and decision making.

The General Insurance Code Governance Committee finds that insurers must focus on creating an ethical, consumer-focused culture that is championed by the Board and underpinned by robust governance and business practices if they are to improve their compliance with the General Insurance Code of Practice.

To help insurers achieve this, the report contains 22 clear and simple recommendations about how to make the Code a living and successful document with valuable outcomes, such as:

• the importance of developing a consumer-centric culture that values honesty and fairness
• the need for those at the top of insurance organisations to ‘set the tone’
• robust governance processes that encourage and enable everyone in the insurance organisation to ‘live the Code’.

Read the full report: Living the Code: Embedding Code obligations in compliance frameworks

Read the media release: Media Release - Living the Code

The Code Compliance and Monitoring Team (Code Team) is a separately operated and funded business unit of AFCA. The Code Team supports independent committees to monitor compliance with codes of practice in the Australian financial services industry to achieve service standards people can trust.

For more information, visit the codes of practice page.

Published: 1 June 2020

Media enquiries media@afca.org.au

About AFCA

The Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) is a non-government ombudsman service providing free, fair and independent help with financial disputes. It is a one-stop-shop for consumers and small businesses who have a dispute with their financial firm, over things such as banking, credit, insurance, advice, investments or superannuation. Where an agreement cannot be reached between parties, AFCA can issue decisions that are binding on financial firms.