Page 3953 - Week 12 - Thursday, 20 October 2005
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I seek leave to move a motion authorising the publication of the paper.
Leave granted.
MR STANHOPE: I move:
That the Assembly authorises publication of the paper.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
MR STANHOPE: I ask for leave to make a statement in relation to the paper.
Leave granted.
MR STANHOPE: This report has been prepared under part 15 (2) of the Civil Law (Wrongs) Act. This part requires insurers to provide, in relation to the ACT market, annual returns indicating the quantum of premium taken, claims made, claims paid and claims refused. The part also requires a report about the key findings arising from the annual returns presented to the ACT Assembly.
Members probably will recall that this was a part of the ACT government’s response to the issues that Australia faced in relation to the availability and affordability of insurance. Indeed, I believe that it was unique in that the ACT, as I understand it, is the only place in Australia where insurance companies are required to provide a report of this nature, which we believe will become very important once we have brought up some body of information through successive annual returns. This is the second, but the information already in relation to premiums paid for various forms of insurance in the ACT as against claims costs against that type of insurance is beginning to reveal some quite interesting details.
It is still too early for us to rely conclusively on this information because of the drag forward effect of the Civil Law (Wrongs) Act but, by way of illustration, in 2004-05—as I say, conclusions cannot yet be drawn from it but it does give some indication of the sort of analysis that we will be much better placed to make in the future in relation to some of the claims of insurance companies about different forms of insurance—Canberrans paid $32,531,000 in house owner or householder insurance and made claims of half that, $15,521,000. We paid $10,256,000 in commercial motor vehicle insurance and received payments in return in terms of claims of $7,400,000. We made premium payments of $18,355,000 for fire insurance and the claims totalled $8,934,000.
The list goes on. Public and product liability insurance premiums totalled $15,800,000 and there were claims of $5,900,000. One particular form of insurance, which I find absolutely intriguing, is that in 2004-05 Canberrans paid $11,620,000 in mortgage insurance and not a single claim was made. I think that it warrants some investigation that Australia’s insurance companies can take $11,620,000 in premiums for mortgage insurance and not pay out a single cent in claims on that form of insurance.
It is early days and one should not rush to judgment in relation to these matters. This is
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