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Allianz panned over lack of compliance process

19 September 2018 4:49PM
Everyday chores such as website maintenance and staff training have moved to the main game for the royal commission into financial services' misconduct as insurance major Allianz admitted to multiple shortcomings in its business processes.The commission heard yesterday from Lori Callahan, who has been the chief risk officer at Allianz Australia Limited since December last year, taking over from Noeline Woof, who had been in the role for 25 years. She is also responsible, among a raft of other duties, for the customer advocacy division within Allianz. This is a new role, was created in a reorganisation that saw the CRO elevated to the management team, rather than reporting to the CFO.Callahan told the commission that this now meant Jennifer Davidson, head of compliance, reports to her rather than to the chief counsel. They have been working through a stack of cases to determine how many should have been reported to ASIC as breaches of the Corporations Act.She firmly rejected suggestions made by Rowena Orr, senior counsel assisting the commission that, prior to changes made towards the end of last year, Allianz did not have a proper framework for making its decisions in a way that "viewed them through the lens of the customer."She explained: "I would disagree with that in this way:  customer is a component of risk and it is a component of compliance.  So it would have always been a part of those frameworks.  In addition, customer and creating customer centricity has been a long-running objective of Allianz."One of the key items being pursued by the royal commission against insurance giant Allianz is over the false or misleading wording about Allianz insurance products, including travel insurance.The false or misleading statements have been there since 2012 in some instances, despite warnings from external advisers such as law firm law firm Minter Ellison.In 2017, Allianz commissioned Ernst & Young to conduct an assessment of both its risk management framework and its compliance framework, the first time such a review had been made. As part of the engagement, EY assessed each insurer's compliance framework against the key elements of the Maturity Model Assessment, and after interviewing more than 30 compliance staff at Allianz, EY scored Allianz's compliance framework as "evolving" in six areas, and as "established" in four areas."Our investigations and following interviews reveal an overarching sentiment of under-resourcing for compliance personnel ..." EY reported, adding this meant work was mainly in response to breaches, with "limited focus on emerging compliance risks".After some apparently fiery meetings with Woof, the outgoing chief risk officer and other senior compliance staff, EY agreed to tome down its report, noting: "Where Allianz has been unable or did not provide documentary evidence of certain projects, processes or plans, we have relied on the veracity of information provided to us by Allianz."And Callahan confirmed that what started as six evolving and four established categories became three evolving categories and seven established categories.And then Orr showed this was a pattern, with Deloitte engaged to provide independent assessment

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