The industry’s proposal that life insurers should be permitted to have greater involvement in rehabilitation processes, so that sick and injured claimants can get back to work sooner was the subject of a report from the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services on 20 September 2018.

The Committee received over twenty submissions from interested parties including a body representing the private healthcare industry, the ATCU, individual unions and plaintiff law firms who opposed the move.

The Committee rejected the proposal and recommended that ASIC undertake a thorough investigation of the use of in-house rehabilitation services in the life insurance industry. The object of that inquiry will be to determine whether all concerns, (including inappropriate financial incentives) have been resolved for the current non-medical rehabilitation services.

The Committee also recommended that the life insurance industry be required to disclose all of its discretionary, off-contract arrangements to ASIC and that these arrangements be examined.

The details of the report and the submissions are available here.