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This is your regular update of new insurance regulatory developments relevant to the Asia-Pacific* and India, new insurance-related case law in Hong Kong, Australia and England and interesting insurance articles from across the world.

Insurance regulatory updates

Hong Kong

Insurance Authority releases provisional statistics of Hong Kong insurance industry in the first three quarters of 2019

Australia

APRA proposes new capital framework for private health insurance

APRA intervenes to improve sustainability of individual disability income insurance

ASIC to ban unfair cold call sales of direct life insurance and CCI

Insurance cases

BMW Australia Ltd v Brewster; Westpac Banking Corporation v Lenthall [2019] HCA 45 (4 December 2019)

High Court of Australia – Class action litigation funding, common fund orders – A majority of the High Court has held that the Federal Court of Australia and the Supreme Court of New South Wales do not have the power to make common fund orders (CFOs).

A CFO is a court order which obliges all group members in a class action to pay their proportionate share of a litigation funder’s commission out of the proceeds of a judgment or settlement, whether or not the group members have entered into a funding agreement directly with the funder.

The decision means that third-party litigation funders will no longer be able to claim a proportion of the total of any settlement or judgment amount. As a result, funders will now only be able to recover their costs of the pursuing the proceedings and any amounts agreed to be paid by group members who entered into a funding agreement with the funder. This is likely to act as a significant impediment to the economic viability of many class actions which previously might have been pursued.

Insurance articles / news

Hong Kong Federation of Insurers urges postponement of IFRS 17

Will Asia’s insurers follow Axa’s lead on coal?

China: European insurers team up with local partners from various fields

Philippines: Regulator proposes list of changes to insurance law

India: Regulator extends distribution reach for micro life insurance



*Hong Kong, Singapore, China, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand and Australia.