Insurance

Cosmetic Institute director Dr Eddy Dona has flagged that he may drag insurers of his now collapsed medical chain into a class action brought against him and the company over allegedly botched breast implants.

Lawyers behind four quasi representative proceedings against the liquidators of collapsed HIH Insurance have launched a bid to recoup the costs of their successful 18-year-long legal battle.

AMP, Asteron and Westpac have been singled out by ASIC for having higher than expected decline rates for total and permanent disability life insurance claims, in a new review by the corporate watchdog that also revealed a “concerningly high” 60 per cent rejection rate for some narrowly defined policies.

HWL Ebsworth has resolved a lawsuit alleging one of its partners helped the former directors of an insolvent mobile ticketing company divert the proceeds of a life insurance policy to pay money owed to the firm.

Health insurer Medibank has admitted to engaging in misleading and deceptive conduct when it falsely told consumers they were not eligible for certain coverage under their insurance policies in what it called an “internal process failure”, but denies the ACCC’s claim that consumers were denied the benefits they paid for.

Hong Kong-based UDP was entitled to $25 million from its insurers after losing more than $30 million from its disastrous acquisition of dairy conglomerate 5 Star Foods, which had been secretly overcharging one of its biggest customers, food giant Lion Nathan Group.

QBE Underwriting has defended its decision to deny insurance coverage to the builder of Sydney’s troubled Opal Tower development, claiming the cracking was not “major” and did not cause last year’s Christmas Eve evacuation.

Comments made by the director of three firms accused of pushing life insurance onto vulnerable consumers during the banking royal commission may come back to haunt him in a civil penalties proceeding brought by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s insurance unit, CommInsure, is facing 87 criminal charges for allegedly hawking life insurance products in unsolicited telephone calls.

Three syndicates of Lloyd’s London have failed in their bid to toss a case brought by National Australia Bank seeking £357 million ($655 million) in insurance claims relating to two consumer redress schemes in the UK.