Money for Nothing

Life insurance is supposed to provide a safety net for Australians when they are at their most vulnerable. But Adele Ferguson's 2016 investigation into CommInsure — the Commonwealth Bank's life insurance arm — revealed a very different reality.

The investigation, published in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald and broadcast on Nine's 60 Minutes, drew on hundreds of documents, internal communications, and interviews with former CommInsure employees, doctors, and policyholders whose claims had been denied.

Ferguson found that CommInsure was using outdated medical definitions to deny claims — definitions that had not been updated to reflect current medical understanding. Heart attack survivors were being denied payouts because their attacks did not meet a definition of heart attack that the medical profession had abandoned years earlier.

The investigation also revealed that CommInsure had pressured doctors to change their medical assessments to support claim denials, and that internal staff who raised concerns about the practices had been ignored or sidelined.

The broadcast prompted ASIC to launch an investigation into CommInsure. The Commonwealth Bank eventually agreed to review thousands of denied claims and paid out millions of dollars in additional compensation. The investigation also contributed to a broader review of the life insurance industry, leading to significant regulatory reforms.

The CommInsure investigation was a key element of the evidence base that ultimately led to the Banking Royal Commission — demonstrating that the misconduct Ferguson had uncovered in financial planning extended across the Commonwealth Bank's entire financial services operation.