Case note: telephone sales of insurance products

ASIC has announced that The Colonial Mutual Life Assurance Society Limited, trading as CommInsure, has pleaded guilty to 87 counts of offering to sell insurance products in the course of unlawful, unsolicited telephone calls, contrary to the prohibition in s992A(3) of the Corporations Act against what is known as “hawking”.
Background.

CommInsure will be sentenced at a later time.

CommInsure was a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia at the relevant times.

Separately ASIC said Comminsure has agreed to refund customers $12 million for unfair telephone sales of its accidental death insurance product – called Accident Protection.

 

Your Compliance Support Plan

We understand you need a cost-effective way to keep up to date with regulatory changes. Talk to us about our fixed price plans.