March communiqué
The SIRA Board held its second meeting of 2021, with members joining virtually and in person at 231 Elizabeth St on Tuesday, 30 March.
The Board congratulated SIRA Chief Executive Ms Carmel Donnelly on her upcoming appointment as the new Chair of the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) and acknowledged her achievements in leading the implementation of the NSW government’s 2017 reforms to the CTP scheme and her approach to protecting customers and holding insurers accountable through increased public reporting, regulatory supervision, and enforcement. The Board noted the status update of the recruitment strategy being adopted for a replacement Chief Executive.
The Chief Executive reported that a successful offsite meeting for SIRA senior executives was held recently at which the team discussed strategy, leadership and operations.
It was noted that APRA has revised its supervision model and it was agreed that SIRA will examine the new model to see if there are learnings as part of ongoing enhancement of SIRA’s insurer supervision model.
The Board noted the commencement of the Personal Injury Commission and the Independent Review Office on 1 March 2021 and were provided with an overview of the transitional arrangements in place.
- The Personal Injury Commission is a single tribunal that manages disputes about claim matters in both the workers compensation and CTP Insurance Schemes. Disputes about claim management that were previously managed by SIRA’s Dispute Resolution Services or CTP Assist are now managed by the Personal Injury Commission.
- The Independent Review Office (previously known as the Workers Compensation Independent Review Office or WIRO) receives complaints, from claimants and their representatives, about the conduct of insurers during the claims process in both the workers compensation and CTP schemes. CTP complaints were previously managed only by SIRA's CTP Assist service.
The Board congratulated the CFO on the continuing improvements to the Finance Report and suggested some further modifications to improve Board scrutiny and monitoring. It was noted that SIRA Regulatory expenditure for the year-to-date period ending February was less than budget and also less than in the same period last year.
The Board received an update on the McDougall Review of the State Insurance and Care Governance Act 2015 and noted and discussed the release of the PwC Independent Review of icare governance, accountability and culture.
The Board received an update about the Home Building Compensation Scheme and SIRA’s proposed response to the recent IPART Review.
In the Workers Compensation area, the Board examined deep dives into the Return-to-Work Experience of the Nominal Insurer and also the Treasury Managed Fund. The Board noted with concern the increasing prevalence of psychological injury and the fact that claimants with psychological injuries are not returning to work as quickly as those with physical injuries.
After considering a routine Compulsory Third Party Scheme Performance and Monitoring update the Board discussed a deep dive into the experience of vulnerable customer segments. It was also noted that there have been almost 200,000 views of CTP animation videos dealing with aspects of the scheme.
SIRA Management advised that the insights from SIRA’s first study to measure customer experience, health and social outcomes across both workers compensation and compulsory third-party motor vehicle insurance will be shared through a series of short articles over the coming months.
Trevor Matthews
SIRA Board Chair