Australians spend billions of dollars each year on insurance. But do we understand the policies we take out, our entitlements, and are insurers helping or hindering the process?

Lawyers Barney Gask and Tim White, TGB partners who deal with insurers on behalf of their clients every day, talk about the key issues on the Law and Life podcast.

The conduct of insurers was put in the spotlight recently, when the CommInsure scandal broke. Allegations of dodgy practices, questionable medical assessments and general poor treatment of claimants were made public.

The concerns extend beyond CommInsure and to the insurance industry in general. Mr Gask said he advises clients that a claim process will likely take about two years to resolve.

“These insurers will all tend to investigate the claims the same way, so once you lodge the claim, there’s a whole host of documentation that needs to be completed,” Mr Gask told Law and Life.

“Medical reports need to be obtained from sometimes one, sometimes two medical people who might be looking after the claimant. They’ll want something from the employer who might not even be the current employer of the person. That might be difficult if there were issues that surrounded them leaving that employer. To then go back to that employer to get some information or some confirmation about what they were doing and when they ceased could be difficult.

“But then there’s also two levels that they need to go through within the claims process. There will often be a trustee and there will then be an insurer in the background as well too. So, you know, to get the information and then to go through the process can take a lot of time. I think that’s the most frustrating thing for people that I see is how long it all takes before they get a decision. And then it can be that the decision is “well thanks for all of that information, we’re now going to reject your claim.” And then it starts a whole new process in terms of going through the dispute process.”

Mr White believes most consumers do not understand their insurance policies.

“They’re complex policies, aren’t they? They’re often hundreds of pages long, I suppose is probably a fair summary of it, particularly when you add on all the extras and other documents that just go with the actual policy itself,” he said.

“We probably pay insurance when we don’t need it and then I’m sure there’s a lot of claims that are denied that people then just do nothing about. So they’ve paid premiums for years or months and then simply because there’s a letter denying it, no further action is taken. So although we see a lot of claims that are in dispute, there would be a greater number that we would never see where the person just takes it no further.”

Also in the episode:

– What to do before taking out a policy
– The importance of an insurance health check
– Contesting rejected claims
– And more

The Law and Life podcast is brought to you by Tindall Gask Bentley Lawyers, a leading Australian law firm, with special guests.

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Need legal advice? Contact your nearest TGB office.