Extract from ABC News
By political reporter Eliza
Borrello
Updated 9 minutes ago
The Federal Opposition has said the Government
must consider a royal commission into what it has labelled the
"disgraceful" practices of the Commonwealth Bank's
insurance arm, CommInsure.
Key points:
- Dying patients say CommInsure is rejecting payout claims
- Labor's Jim Chalmers says it is test to Assistant Treasurer Kelly O'Dwyer, wants royal commission
- He calls for bank's chief Ian Narev to front Senate committee
- Nationals Senator John Williams predicts further inquiries
Last night a joint Four Corners-Fairfax
investigation aired the stories of sick
and dying CommInsure policy holders, including Evan Pashalis, 37.
Mr Pashalis, who was diagnosed with leukaemia and
given 12 months to live, is one of 4 million CommInsure policy
holders.
His super fund CARE subcontracted his life
insurance policy to CommInsure, which repeatedly rejected his payout
claim.
"They figured, well, there might be a slight
chance he survives, so why pay him?" Mr Pashalis said.
After the reporters behind the story contacted the
bank —a week before it aired — he was offered a settlement.
Shadow financial services minister Jim Chalmers
said the Government must consider a royal commission.
"There are millions of Australians who are
potentially impacted," he said.
"No Australian should be treated in the
despicable, appalling, inhumane way like those people in that
program.
"Your heart goes out to these victims of such
shabby and disgusting practices.
"This is a very interesting test for
[Assistant Treasurer] Kelly O'Dwyer and the Turnbull Government.
"This is a Government very quick to pull the
trigger on royal commissions when it relates to the union movement,
this will be a test of whether they're prepared to take that kind of
action when it comes to the disgraceful practices highlighted on Four
Corners."
CommInsure scandal: Who's who?
Mr Chalmers also wanted the bank's chief executive
Ian Narev to front a Senate committee.
Nationals senator John Williams predicted there
would be further inquiries.
"I think what this will lead to is another
Senate inquiry, this time into the insurance industry … I think
eventually we will get a royal commission," he said.
The program also aired claims from CommInsure's
former chief medical officer — who only wanted to be referred to as
Dr Koh — that it pressured
doctors to rewrite medical opinions so the company could avoid
payouts to sick and dying people.
"They were quite blatant about it, 'Can you
please change it or delete it so that we can go to someone else to
provide another opinion that's more favourable?'," he said.
Dr Koh was sacked in 2015 after being accused of
sending internal documents to his personal email, which he said he
did because files were going missing.
Mr Narev said he could not comment on Dr Koh's
accusations, citing legal restrictions, but said he encouraged staff
to speak up if they saw something wrong.
Commonwealth Bank "are an institution that
wants to hold ourselves to the highest standard," he told Radio
National this morning.
"That doesn't mean we can be perfect, but we
want to hold ourselves to those standards and the cases those clients
have had are just not good enough and we have let them down."
In 2014, Mr Narev was forced to apologise
unreservedly to customers who lost money in the bank's
multi-million-dollar financial planning scandal.
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