A new report from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has found widespread non-compliance with consumer protections across unsolicited selling, and its central recommendation – that digital lead generation be explicitly captured within the rules governing unsolicited sales – carries compounding compliance implications for how insurance products are marketed, distributed, and sold in Australia.
The report, published July 28, 2026, follows a designated complaint lodged by the Consumer Action Law Centre in March 2025, the first submitted under the ACCC’s new designated complaints framework. Its findings arrive at the convergence of several independently moving reform streams that together represent the most concentrated period of distribution conduct reform Australian insurance has faced since the Hayne Royal Commission.
The ACCC found that consumers’ personal data is routinely collected through price comparison websites, online quote tools, free trials, and surveys then sold through data brokers and used to initiate unsolicited sales contacts. Explicitly bringing lead generation within the rules governing unsolicited consumer agreements would directly affect distribution models that rely on third-party data intermediaries to identify and contact prospective customers.
That exposure is material in insurance. Australia’s online insurance comparison platforms market is valued at $1.1 billion, and the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority’s (APRA) Intermediated General Insurance Statistics for the six months to June 2025 show that around 50% of gross written premium written by APRA-authorised general insurers was placed through intermediaries. ACCC deputy chair Catriona Lowe said existing rules had not kept pace with how sales contacts are now initiated. “We are recommending that lead generation is explicitly included in the rules governing unsolicited selling,” Lowe said.
The ACCC’s proposed reforms intersect with two existing frameworks already governing how insurance products can be sold to retail clients. The first is the Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s (ASIC) anti-hawking prohibition under the Corporations Act, in force since October 2021, which bars offering financial products during or because of unsolicited, real-time contact. Under ASIC’s Regulatory Guide 38, consent must be positive, voluntary, clear, and reasonably understandable. Separately, the ACCC found that consumers often do not meaningfully expect unsolicited sales contact after providing their details through comparison websites, surveys, or data brokers, prompting its recommendation that lead generation be explicitly captured under the unsolicited selling regime.
The second is the design and distribution obligations (DDO) regime, under which comparison sites and other third-party insurance distributors must take reasonable steps to ensure products reach consumers consistent with the issuer’s target market determination. ASIC’s surveillance of 19 issuers of high-risk investment, insurance, and credit products, reported in Report 795, found that many issuers had limited due diligence arrangements to assess and monitor third-party distributors, and some relied on broad search terms in online marketing. ASIC’s first civil penalty action for DDO breaches by a distributor resulted in Firstmac Limited being ordered to pay $8 million in penalties in the first half of 2025. The ACCC’s lead generation findings add a third layer: that the process of generating a contact through a comparison site or data broker may itself constitute unsolicited selling, regardless of what follows.
The ACCC’s most significant structural recommendation is replacing the existing 10-business-day cooling-off period with an opt-in model, requiring consumers to affirmatively confirm a sale within a set period, separately from the sales interaction, before a transaction takes effect and payment is processed. “Because of the frequent breaches of existing restrictions, we recommend the cooling off period be replaced with an ‘opt-in’ model. This will better protect consumers from high pressure selling tactics and from making purchases they do not want or cannot afford,” Lowe said.
Insurance professionals already have a live benchmark for what consent-based compliance demands in practice. ASIC’s informed consent obligations for insurance brokers, which took effect on July 10, 2025, require brokers providing personal advice to retail clients to obtain explicit, documented client consent before receiving a commission or placing cover. Remuneration disclosure breaches recorded by the Insurance Brokers Code Compliance Committee (IBCCC) jumped from 42 in 2023 to 334 in 2024 – a rise the IBCCC linked directly to greater industry awareness ahead of the new informed consent rules. The IBCCC noted that the increase reflected a maturing compliance culture but also flagged that 42% of brokers still reported zero breaches, raising questions about the effectiveness of internal oversight frameworks.
The ACCC’s proposed opt-in model would extend an analogous consent requirement across a far broader range of consumer transactions, well beyond the broker personal advice context. The broker consent experience – with its documented compliance gap and reported surge in breach reporting – provides a concrete reference point for what operational demands the ACCC’s model would place on distribution businesses that have not redesigned workflows around affirmative confirmation steps. The ACCC also recommended increasing the current maximum penalty from $50,000 for a corporation and $10,000 for an individual under the Australian Consumer Law.
ASIC in February 2026 commenced a new review of advice licensees using lead generation services as part of its ongoing program to address practices that inappropriately or unnecessarily encourage consumers to switch their superannuation. ASIC is also actively pursuing action against Choosi Pty Ltd for alleged failings in its comparison site practices and RACQ for concerns related to misleading comparison pricing.
The federal government has passed the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Unfair Trading Practices) Act 2026, with the new laws due to commence on July 1, 2027. The Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) supports the reforms but has called for a framework that aligns with existing financial services legislation, including the ASIC Act, the Corporations Act, and sector-specific conduct obligations, to avoid duplication and regulatory uncertainty. The ICA’s redraft of the General Insurance Code of Practice – which for the first time would make key insurer commitments legally enforceable pending ASIC approval – adds a further conduct reform layer.
Together, the ACCC report, the Unfair Trading Practices Bill, ASIC’s hawking and DDO enforcement programs, the broker informed consent regime, and the Code redraft represent a reform environment in which adequacy of lead generation, distribution, and consumer consent practices is a named regulatory concern across every forum governing insurance conduct in Australia. The ACCC recommended the effectiveness of its proposed measures be reviewed within two years of implementation.
