The National Insurance Brokers Association says the updated code of practice, to be launched at next week’s annual convention, includes 21 clauses changed between the draft and the final version.

Development of the document – which takes effect on January 1 – followed three stages of consultation and consideration of 51 written submissions and more than 300 pieces of feedback.

“We could not accept every view, but we weighed each one,” CEO Richard Klipin said. “Twenty-one clauses changed because of what we heard and the 2027 code is better for every piece of feedback.”

NIBA says that compared with the 2022 code, there are 60 new provisions. The document also contains two additional sections for managing conflicts of interest and keeping client records.

The minimum notice period before a policy renewal doubles from 14 days to 28, and a broker that identifies a conflict of interest it cannot manage in the client’s best interests must tell them immediately and stop acting on that matter.

NIBA says any client can ask what their broker is paid and receive the answer in dollars within a reasonable time, and where commission must be disclosed, it is shown in the quotation for each insurer compared and as a dollar amount on the invoice.

A client experiencing a difficult time can, with consent, have that recorded so they do not need to keep repeating their circumstances, and after a declared catastrophe, brokers must contact clients as soon as they reasonably can and offer to help with claim lodgement.

Staff must be trained when they join to support clients experiencing vulnerability, then again every year. Client records must be complete, accurate and secure, and kept until any complaint, dispute or claim is resolved. Annual reporting to the Insurance Brokers Code Compliance Committee is written into the document.

Feedback was received from brokers ranging from sole practitioners to multinationals, plus regulators and government agencies, the external dispute resolution scheme, consumer and financial counselling organisations, professional bodies and the code compliance committee.

“Feedback we did not adopt still did its job, because it made us test the reasoning behind every call,” NIBA code review committee chair Di Phelan said.