The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) announced it will publish a greater breadth of industry-aggregate data for the general insurance (GI) and life insurance (LI) sectors in its quarterly reports.
Last year, the regulator released a consultation proposing that the GI and LI product group data it receives should be considered non-confidential. In a recent letter to industry, APRA confirmed that the data will be treated as non-confidential in their next reports.
By publishing more of the data that it collects, APRA said it “aims to promote greater transparency in the LI and GI industry” that will, in turn, support “competition, contestability and efficiency in the financial system and facilitate innovative uses of data.”
According to APRA, publishing more data will also generate greater consumer understanding and more informed public discussion of insurance-related issues, promote better practices through comparability and peer review, and encourage insurers to act with discipline and more efficient market behaviour.
“This determination responds to the feedback received on the consultation on data confidentiality for the GI and LI industries, published in February 2020,” APRA said. “It also supports APRA’s strategic priority to increase the transparency of the data it collects, and aligns with the Australian Government Public Data Policy Statement.”
APRA will publish the first of the impacted publications – the quarterly GI performance statistics and quarterly LI performance statistics for the September 2021 reference period – on 25 November 2021.
