ASIC has announced that in response to ASIC’s concerns that consumers may have been misled by advertising that promised an ANZ Visa gift card when applying for income protection insurance, Australian and New Zealand Banking Group Limited (ANZ) will waive fine print qualifications to the offer and will send gift cards to everyone who applied for the insurance during the promotion.

The advertisements for income protection insurance for ANZ’s wholly-owned subsidiary OnePath Life Limited with a bonus offer of a $100 ANZ Visa gift card ran in newspapers and online between 3 November 2013 and 14 December 2013.

But consumers did not qualify for the gift card unless they maintained their policy for an initial year and paid all premiums when due.

While these conditions were disclosed in the advertisement’s fine print, ASIC believed they were not sufficiently prominent to ensure that consumers would not be misled.

ANZ has started sending the gift cards to 742 people who applied for the insurance during the promotion. This includes 170 people who applied but did not meet the conditions to be eligible to receive the card because they were either declined cover or their policy had lapsed.

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