By JOHN VAN KLAVEREN
VICTORIA’S new fire services levy monitor will investigate a Norlane pensioner’s insurance premium after it remained virtually unchanged despite the levy’s shift to council rates.
Julie Clark said her insurance premium went up almost the same amount as the former fire services levy.
Mrs Clark said she paid a premium of $678 last year, including $146 for the fire levy.
But her QBE Insurance premium this year was $675 without the levy.
State Government has taken the levy off insurance premiums and added it to council rates so all property owners rather than only the insured contribute to funding fire-fighting services. The levy will be at least $100.
Mrs Clark was sceptical of QBE’s explanation for this year’s charge.
“I rang the insurance company and they told me their rates had gone up. I asked whether they thought it was strange there was only a $3 difference in the premium from last year to this year with no levy.
“Their reply was, ‘That’s the way it is’.
“Not only has my insurance gone up by almost the same as the fire levy, I’ll have the fire levy tacked onto my rates, so I feel like I’m paying it twice.”
Mrs Clark said she was asked to forward copies of her premium renewals when she contacted the fire services levy monitor, headed by Professor Alan Fels.
“The monitor said that if QBE has done anything untoward it will be prosecuted,” Mrs Clark said.
“People should check their renewals to make sure their insurance company hasn’t done the same thing to them.”
Prof Fels said policy-holders wanted reassurance their premiums would come down by the amount of the removed levy.
“The monitor has been established to protect consumers during the transition and make sure insurers genuinely pass on savings,” he said.
“So far the level and quality of information provided to policy holders by insurers about the impact of the fire insurance levy reforms has been less than satisfactory. If insurance companies claim that higher costs offset any part of the benefit of the reduced FSL, they’ll be expected to justify in detail these cost increases.”
A QBE Australia spokesperson said the company was “working with the monitor to ensure we are complying with all the requirements of the legislation”.
“We review our premiums regularly and take into account a number of factors, including risk factors such as location and construction, claims history, type of cover selected and indexation.
“Any changes to our premiums are independent of the changes to fire services levies.”
