Commonwealth Regulation of Consumer Credit Insurance

On 15 December 2009, the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009 (Cth) received royal assent. This was a key step in the transfer of responsibility for the regulation of consumer credit from the States and Territories to the Commonwealth, which had been agreed at a series of meetings of the Council of Australian Governments in 2008.

Under the old regime, which applied since 1996, each State and Territory enacted legislation which incorporated by reference, or substantially reproduced, the Consumer Credit (Queensland) Act 1994 Consumer Credit Code which was the Appendix to the (Cth), and the Consumer Credit Regulation 1995 (Qld), being regulations made under that Act.

Relevantly for insurers, the Consumer Credit Code and Regulations regulated "credit-related insurance contracts", including "consumer credit insurance" (CCI), in various ways. Perhaps most significantly, commission paid by an insurer in connection with consumer credit insurance was capped at 20