Life CCC spots 10.6k breaches in FY26

The Life Code Compliance Committee (Life CCC) has published its FY26 annual report, which saw over 10,600 breaches by insurers with close to 30,000 customers affected.

Of the 10,697 breaches in FY26, a single insurer accounted for 10,105, who has been sanctioned. The committee also sanctioned another insurer for collecting customers' data without medical authority in March.

None of the insurers above were named.

The report also noted the current priority lays on the revised Life Code (Code), signifying issues emerging from the industry, including claims handling, mental health, vulnerability and support for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander customers.

The Council of Australian Life Insurers has commissioned an independent review, led by Peter Kell, which made 85 recommendations to the Code.

"Importantly, we made practical recommendations about where future Code commitments could be clarified or strengthened," the Life CCC said.

"This allowed the lessons from our oversight of the current Code to contribute directly to consideration of the standards and protections that will apply under the future Code."

Life CCC chair Jan McClelland highlighted claims remain a clear priority moving forward, with further work into claims handling "already underway" and believes the new Code will strengthen protections for customers.

"The value of this work lies not only in dealing with individual instances of non-compliance, but in making sure the lessons from them inform improvements in industry practice," she said.

"Over the past year, we have used what we learned from serious breaches, allegations and broader inquiries to strengthen accountability, influence industry discussion and contribute to the development of the next Code."

McClelland said the committee has also strengthened accountability for breaches and brought wider attention to problems affecting customers in the financial year.

"Our work throughout the year saw us act on serious non-compliance and follow significant breaches through to remediation and corrective action. We considered not only individual matters but also the broader systemic issues that carry wider consequences for consumers and industry practice," she said.

"That wider perspective was important in areas where customer protections depend heavily on how insurers apply the Code in practice.

"Our inquiries into mental health underwriting and support for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander customers identified barriers, gaps and areas where insurer practice could improve. They also provided important insights to inform broader industry discussion."

Meanwhile, the committee noted a significant improvement in investigation time, cutting the average from 12 months to seven months, and was able to finalise 111 allegations out of the 120 received during the year.

"The investigations identified issues related to vulnerability and financial hardship, claims handling, distributor obligations and surveillance, resulting in four Code breaches," Life CCC said.

"We also reduced the average time taken to finalise an investigation significantly, from 12 months to seven. We achieved this by streamlining our investigation processes and improving how we organised and progressed matters, reducing delays and allowing investigations to be resolved more efficiently."

The committee will publish the findings of its claims handling inquiry and continue contributing to the development of the new Code in the current financial year.