Why won’t the major parties get serious about the cost of Insurance?
Senator: “I’ll put this to you Minister, what’s your view on bringing back a Government Insurance Office to provide a little bit more competition and integrity in the Insurance market?
Minister: ”The Government would be more reluctant to enter the Insurance market more broadly.”
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Why are the two major parties ignoring the obvious solution to rising insurance costs which is to reinstate a Government owned Insurance Bank.
Australians are being ripped off by foreign owned multinationals because State Governments privatised their Insurance Offices.
Again this is another example of why you can’t trust the Uniparty. The Reinsurance Pool is as the Minister says not working that well.
This isn’t surprising because the multinationals just increased their reinsurance costs by $10 billion once the reinsurance pool was announced.
Bringing back an Investment Bank is just one of the major solutions that People First is offering to deal with the cost of living crisis.
Unlike the major parties who look for a problem to every solution, we have a solution for every problem.
Vote for change. Vote for hope. Vote for People First.
Economics Legislation Committee
26/02/2025
Estimates
TREASURY PORTFOLIO
Department of the Treasury
Senator RENNICK: Just one other thing: obviously, we’ve discussed insurance here today. Yet again, we’ve seen over the last 30 years, since the state government insurance offices were privatised, that there’s been a shrinking of competition in the sector—similar to banking, really. I’ll put this to you, Minister: what’s your view on bringing back a government insurance office to provide a little bit more competition and integrity in the insurance market? I’ll just make the note as well that about 40 to 50 per cent of insurance costs are actually reinsurance costs where money goes offshore.
Senator Gallagher: Yes.
Senator RENNICK: If the federal government were to underwrite itself and reinsure itself—
Senator Gallagher: Yes. We’ve sort of done that with the Cyclone Reinsurance Pool
Mr Philp: The Cyclone Reinsurance Pool, yes.
Senator Gallagher: It is a little bit like that, but it hasn’t yet—there’s been some reduction but not the significant reductions that were spoken about under the former government. The government would be reluctant to enter the insurance market more broadly, I would think, but we are waiting for all the advice to come from the insurance taskforce. We’re aware it’s a big price pressure on houses, particularly in your state, where there are a lot of natural disasters and people have been getting those increases in their premiums.
Senator RENNICK: Yes.
Senator Gallagher: But we want to look at what are practical and reasonable ways to ensure that people can remain insured. Part of the government’s role, really—I think you will hear this if you talk to the insurers and councils—is to support some of the mitigation efforts: the flood levees and the roofs and doors, including garage doors, being able to be locked down and things like that. I think the Queensland state government has a program that we’ve supported. That’s actually where you can see significant reductions—of 15 per cent in some cases— where you’ve actually been able to have that remediation work done.
Senator RENNICK: Right. Cheers. Thank you.
