Duty of Disclosure / Duty to Not Misrepresent
When you apply for insurance you must tell your insurer certain information which would affect am insurers decision to insure you. For this reason, under the
Insurance Contracts Act (ICA) 1984, you and everyone insured under your policy, have a duty of disclosure to the insurer.
Your Disclosure Obligations
It is important that you provide us with complete and accurate information about the risk to be insured otherwise the advice we give you may not be appropriate for your needs. We rely on you to provide complete and accurate information.
Before you enter into an insurance contract with an insurer, you have a duty under the Insurance Contracts Act 1984 to disclose information to the insurer. This Duty of Disclosure applies until the insurer either agrees to insure you or renew your insurance. The Duty of Disclosure also applies before you extend, vary or reinstate your insurance.
If you are applying for or renewing insurance in relation to consumer insurance products such as, your motor vehicle, home building and/or contents, residential strata, travel, personal accident, or sickness and/or consumer credit products, you must answer the specific questions asked by the insurer truthfully and accurately. In answering those questions, you must tell the insurer all information that’s known to you and that a reasonable person would be expected to provide in answer to the questions. Not doing so may be considered by the insurer to be a breach of your ‘duty to take reasonable care not to make a misrepresentation’ and may cause issues in relation to the validity of your insurance contract and/or issues in the event of you lodging a claim.
At renewal, the insurer may either ask you to advise any changes to something you have previously disclosed or may give you a copy of the information you previously disclosed and ask you to advise them if there has been a change. If you do not tell the insurer about a change, you will be taken to have told the insurer there is no change.
If you are either applying for or renewing any other types of insurance, you must tell the insurer all information that is known to you that a reasonable person in the circumstances could be expected to know or that is relevant to the insurer’s decision to insure you and on what terms. You do not need to tell the insurer anything:
- that reduces the risk it insures you for;
- is common knowledge;
- that the insurer knows or should know; or
- which the insurer waived you duty to tell it about.
Non-disclosure
If you fail to comply with your Duty of Disclosure, the insurer may cancel your contract or reduce the amount it will pay you if you make a claim, or both. If your failure to comply with the Duty of Disclosure is fraudulent, the insurer may refuse to pay a claim and treat the contract as if it never existed.
If you are in doubt about whether or not a particular matter should be disclosed, please contact your insurance broker.
Where you represent another insured party, you must make sure you explain the Duty of Disclosure to them when we arrange any insurance cover. Alternatively, you may ask any person you represent to contact us and we will explain their Duty of Disclosure to them directly.
Our Financial Services Guide
Our financial services guide provides further information regarding our services, how we are remunerated and should be read in conjunction with our service agreement.
We are authorised to advise you about and arrange general insurance products. If we are either unable to advise you or act on your behalf due to a conflict of interest which cannot be managed, we will immediately notify you.
