The Australian Securities and Investments Commission will begin seeking views on the redrafted general insurance code of practice next week and aims to finalise its review process in the new year.

Commissioner Alan Kirkland told the Insurance Council of Australia Annual Conference today that the regulator will engage directly with key stakeholders and invite written comments.

“This will inform further discussions with ICA about any changes that may be required before a final code is submitted for formal consideration, which can hopefully occur early in 2027,” he said.

“This work is a priority for ASIC because we see the code as an important foundation to my core message today: that in general insurance, getting the basics right is now more important than ever.”

ASIC acknowledges the amount of work that went into developing the revised code, including the final stage of consultation led by ICA in recent months, he said.

Mr Kirkland told the conference industry codes have a role to play reducing regulatory burdens.

Related article: ICA chair calls on stakeholders to ‘lock in behind’ new code

“They are a key opportunity for an industry to demonstrate where additional legislative regulation may not be required,” he said.

“If you can lift the baseline to the right level, then government’s much less likely to step in and say, ‘Well, we need to introduce new regulation in that area.’ ”

Assistant Treasurer and Financial Services Minister Daniel Mulino told the conference he would not comment on specific changes, but the decision to make the code contractually enforceable and submit it to ASIC for approval were positive developments.

“This is now with the regulators, and I’ll let that process play out,” he said. “But I did want to acknowledge that there’s been a lot of work that’s gone into the revamping of the code, and that it is going through that process, and that is a good thing.”

Dr Mulino stressed that improvements can still be made “between the landing of that code and the development of the next code”.