Suncorp agrees to ASIC compliance upgrade
An Australian Securities and Investments Commission initiated independent review has resulted in the Suncorp Group agreeing to upgrade its compliance arrangements across both its life and general insurance businesses following breaches which resulted in client refunds of around $23 million.
The regulator announced today that Suncorp had “agreed to implement a number of enhancements to its existing program of compliance system improvement across its life and general insurance businesses”.
The ASIC announcement said this had followed an ASIC-requested independent review of the compliance systems following its “own examination of a significant number of breaches reported by the group”.
It said that from June 2010 to date, over 849,000 customers had been affected by reported breaches, requiring refunds of approximately $23 million.
Commenting on the development, ASIC deputy chairman Peter Kell acknowledged that the company had acted appropriately in reporting the breaches to ASIC as it identified them, and in acting to remediate affected customers.
He said Suncorp would report regularly to ASIC this year until the compliance system changes were complete.
“ASIC was keen to ensure Suncorp’s systems were adequate to prevent the breaches happening again so requested the independent review. Suncorp has taken a constructive approach and ASIC is pleased Suncorp is improving its compliance systems in a way the review suggested,” Kell said.
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