Australia’s largest provider of superannuation insurance, the Commonwealth Bank, announced plans to sell its CommInsure life insurance arm following a bout of negative publicity over the firm’s claims payment and processes, the New Daily reported.
Chief Executive Ian Narev said in an announcement earlier this week the bank was holding talks with potential buyers for its Australian and New Zealand life insurance businesses.
“What’s become apparent is that there is some appetite in the broader insurance world in having discussions with us and [they] are very interested in the business. What we do know is that there are people who have a view that it is a very, very good business and have a very high level of interest,” Narev said.
CommInsure suffered a loss of reputation following publicity which stated the firm had unethical claims payment procedures where doctors were pressured to avoid claims payment and the firm used loopholes to escape paying claims, the New Daily wrote.
As a result, CommInsure suffered heavy losses of major contracts including NGS Super, CareSuper and TWU Super last year.
Narev continued; “It would be too early yet to talk about potential prices or capital impacts. In terms of the timing in the market, I think the Australian insurance market is of a lot of interest to a lot of players. We would only sell it if we were confident we could get good value for it,” Fairfax Media reported.
“We’ll see if minds will meet on it,” he said.
