How we design our products and how we distribute them, so they meet the needs of the customers they are built for.
MHIA is an Australian-based underwriting agency offering specialist insurance for property risks across Australia. This policy explains how we design our products and how we distribute them, so they meet the needs of the customers they are built for.
This document sets out our commitments to you. We review it regularly and update it when our practices or obligations change.
We design insurance around a clear understanding of what our customers need. We build that understanding by:
New products, and changes to existing products, go through an approval process before they are released. That process checks each product against our regulatory, customer, and business requirements — including our obligations under the Design and Distribution Obligations and the General Insurance Code of Practice.
For every retail product, we determine the target market and record it in a Target Market Determination (TMD). The TMD describes the customers a product is designed for, the customers it is not suitable for, and the conditions on how it is distributed. We review each TMD on a set cycle and whenever something happens that suggests it may no longer be appropriate.
Note: Our TMDs, Product Disclosure Statements, and Key Fact Sheets are available on our policy documents page, or by calling us.
All MHIA products are distributed by phone, in person at our office, or through our website. We do not distribute through third-party channels that fall outside our control framework.
Our distribution is supported by control frameworks and quality assurance programs designed to keep our sales activity aligned with our obligations. We embed underwriting guidelines in our sales process so that the products we offer deliver value to customers while remaining financially sustainable.
We monitor how our products are sold and how they perform once they are in the market. Where monitoring, complaints, or claims experience suggests a product is not reaching the right customers or not delivering the value it should, we review the product, its target market, and the way it is distributed, and we make changes where needed.
Our monitoring includes regular review of pricing, customer outcomes, claims experience, complaints and overall product performance, so that each product continues to provide fair value to the customers it is designed for.
Events that may trigger a product review, or intervention in how a product is distributed, include:
Employees involved in product development and distribution receive appropriate training in design and distribution obligations (DDO), product governance, conduct risk and customer outcomes.
If you have a question about our products or how they are sold, we are happy to help.
We design our insurance for the customers it is meant to serve, distribute it through channels we control, and keep checking that it continues to deliver real value. When a product is not doing what it should for our customers, we act.