Everett tells insurance companies time's up and regulatory change is coming

Everett says the insurance industry has been warned for many years to improve its conduct and how it treats customers, but little has changed in that time.

As a consequence the Government is going to fill the regulatory gap "comprehensively".

"I’m not one to want to regulate the life out of any business but the industry had years to prepare itself and was found to not have been paying sufficient attention. Given the forest fire going on in Australia over the last five years or so, and certainly well before the Royal Commission was established, I find that hard to comprehend."

Everett, speaking at a Transparency International event, said that ever since his first speech as FMA chief executive in 2014, he has been trying to get the industry to focus on the behaviours it rewarded and how it monitored conduct.