Insurance

Westpac subsidiary BT Funds Management and Tal Life Insurance have foreshadowed applications to strike out the pleadings of a class action alleging superannuation customers were overcharged for insurance coverage. 

A judge has dismissed the corporate regulator’s first-ever case over unfair insurance contracts terms, finding it was not unfair for an insurer to require customers to notify it if anything changed about their home or its contents.

Mortgage broker Lendi Group and insurer ALI Group face a class action over the sale of allegedly worthless mortgage insurance policies to homeowners.

The law firm behind a class action against Insurance Australia Group has secured a group costs order that will give it 30 per cent of any proceeds — a contingency fee rate six percentage points higher than the median rate for shareholder cases.

The Full Federal Court has found it was “abundantly clear” on the evidence before a trial judge that funeral expenses insurance provider ACBG misrepresented to Aboriginal customers that it was Aboriginal owned or managed, but found ASIC contributed to the error with its bad pleadings.

A judge has ordered soft class closure in a class action against Suncorp unit AAI over allegedly worthless insurance, saying that knowing how many of the 200,000 group members are likely to participate would assist in resolving the case.

A judge has railed against insurer QBE after it sent an email to brokers saying it could “in effect ignore” the court’s request that they notify clients about a class action on behalf of businesses that were denied business interruption coverage for COVID-19 related shutdowns. 

Suncorp subsidiary AAI has asked a court to order soft class closure in a group proceeding over allegedly worthless insurance, saying it was “passing strange” that over 200,000 group members “don’t know they’re even group members” three years into the case. 

A judge has signed off on a 27.5 per cent group costs order in a consolidated shareholder class action against Medibank over a cyberattack that affected 10 million customers, noting the “significant risk” taken on by the two plaintiff law firms running the action. 

Still in the dark about insurance coverage and seeking to stem the flow of cash, two class actions against Heritage Care and St Basil’s over COVID-19 outbreaks have been shelved pending the outcome of criminal cases against the Victorian aged care providers, in a decision the judge said “wouldn’t gladden the hearts of group members”.