Changing the conversation on regulatory change

Over the past three years, we’ve seen significant regulatory and structural change across our industry. Driven by market consolidation, evolving consumer and community expectations have provided us an opportunity to re-focus on what’s most important, your members.

For insurance in super, we see three clear themes that have emerged:

• Protecting members’ retirement savings
• Providing sustainable, value for money products that are appropriately designed and distributed, and
• Enabling access and greater choice for members.

We’re focused on helping our superannuation fund partners like you to navigate the evolving regulatory and legislative landscape,  ensuring you understand the context and impact of changes (such as through our recent TAL Partner Forums) while minimising disruptions to members through proactive engagement.

As part of our ambition, which aims to improve outcomes for not just your members, but all our customers, TAL launched its Customer Excellence Program earlier this year. This program incorporates operational enhancements across the organisation, as well as implementing regulatory reforms through a dedicated program of work.

What will this mean for your members?

• Enhanced customer-centric product design through greater research, insights and governance of our products;  
• Improved claims handling experience through further investment into our people, processes, and governance; 
• Quicker identification and resolution of member issues and complaints, and greater empowerment of our member-facing teams to resolve problems
• Ongoing improvements to the member experience we deliver through enhanced insights and reporting that drive action across the organisation 
• Revisiting naming conventions, and applying a more member-centric approach to simplify language to make things easier to understand
• Enhanced experience standards across the life insurance industry through the next iteration of the Life Insurance Code of Practice (LICOP 2.0).

I especially wanted to call out the rationale around our renaming of items in the program as it speaks to the heart of culture about focusing on the member, such as flipping ‘anti-hawking’ to ethical selling.

How we’re responding to the Royal Commission

A key element of the program has involved implementing several recommendations from the Financial Services Royal Commission relevant to group insurance. I’d like to acknowledge the sheer scale of the change and the joint work between TAL and our funds to embed the new processes and systems. No doubt there will be further work involved as we refine these operational improvements so thank you to everyone involved.

Breach reporting and advice licensees’ obligations

• What does this mean? Strengthens the breach reporting regime to improve members’ experience and outcomes

• What has been improved:  From 1 October 2021, investigations of breaches of more than 30 days will be reported to ASIC, and then reported once again once the investigation determines whether the breach is or is not a ‘reportable situation’. Working with our risk and legal teams, we have implemented processes to ensure that we are able to meet these new reporting requirements.

Duty to take reasonable care not to make a misrepresentation to insurer

• What does this mean? Greater clarity for members when applying for cover which replaces the existing duty of disclosure and now requires members to take reasonable care not to make a misrepresentation when answering underwriting questions.
• What has been improved: We implemented the duty to take reasonable care by the required 5 October 2021 date. The TAL model has been updated on disclosure documents, forms and websites. We’ve ensured members’ paper applications are not unduly impacted during the transition period from fund opt-in to 31 October 2021, during which time we’ll accept old duty of disclosure forms. As a reminder, from 1 November 2021 only applications with the new Duty to Take Reasonable Care disclosure will be accepted.

RG 271 - Internal dispute resolution

• What does this mean? Raising internal dispute resolution (IDR) standards to support a strong complaints culture where organisations learn and continuously improve from customer feedback or complaints.
• What has been improved: We reviewed our operating model structure to ensure that all complaints received, including those resolved within five business days without escalation to our IDR Team, will be recorded in TAL systems. Our teams are equipped to capture and resolve front line complaints in accordance with the updated data dictionary requirements. A new complaints Quality Assurance and Governance forum has also been established to monitor our complaints management processes and analyse complaint data to address the underlying causes. Depending on the final requirements for reporting complaints, we'll work with you to ensure we both meet our reporting obligations.

Claims handling as a financial service 

• What does this mean? Effective 1 January 2022, there will be a greater member focus on claims handling, which has been categorised as a financial service and will be subject to the general licensee obligations to act efficiently, honestly and fairly.
• What has been improved: TAL has undertaken a complete review of its current processes, controls and training against the licensee obligations. This review has shown TAL is in a strong position with regards to compliance and has identified uplift opportunities such as greater product training for frontline teams and enhancements to quality assurance controls and operational reporting.

The regulatory changes we’re seeing also create opportunities to reconsider distribution models and engagement approaches. In the case of Your Future Your Super, greater employer engagement could ultimately help us better support members with understanding their needs and options. Likewise, it can help amplify the role of advice, extend services we can offer and evolve the types of cover we support within super.

How TAL can help with your regulatory compliance

We understand that keeping on top of requirements and deadlines may require additional support and resources from TAL, which is why we have created a Regulatory Hub on Group HQ where we’ll upload useful material and resources.

For further information on how TAL can assist with your regulatory compliance, please speak to your Client Manager.