00:00The corporate watchdog is suing one of Australia's biggest insurers, QBE, over loyalty discounts
00:08it was offering its existing customers.
00:11Those discounts were promised in more than 500,000 renewal notices that were sent to
00:18retirees, loyalty customers, QBE shareholders and those holding multiple QBE policies.
00:26The letters promised up to 60% off, but behind the scenes it's alleged the insurer's systems
00:33had limits that wouldn't have allowed discounts this deep.
00:36We say that QBE knew that some of these pricing mechanisms were applying so that consumers
00:42were not getting the full discounts promised.
00:45QBE started looking into the issue three years ago after ASIC raised concerns.
00:51Confused customers then got letters like this saying the company had incorrectly stated
00:56savings on some policies and didn't provide enough information about when our pricing
01:01promises were limited or didn't apply.
01:05Some customers got hundreds, even thousands of dollars back with interest, others just
01:11a few bucks.
01:12So they'd send me a cheque, it was a bit of an apology, sent me a cheque for a little
01:16over $5, so with the small amount of it, it just wasn't worth it.
01:21ASIC has already brought fines against two other insurers over fake discounts.
01:27It believes that there's evidence of systemic failures with customers losing almost $400
01:33million in recent years.
01:35Insurers are very good at holding consumers to account to their fine print when it comes
01:40to claims time, but they are falling down when it comes to following through on their
01:44own promises that they've made in their advertising.
01:47QBE has apologised for its inconsistencies and says it will work with the regulator.
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