Insurance Australia Group (IAG) and First Nations Foundation (FNF) have entered a three-year agreement focused on reducing financial exclusion among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, with insurance literacy as a central component. The deal was confirmed May 28, coinciding with National Reconciliation Week.
At its core, the arrangement involves two parallel workstreams. FNF will receive support to grow its digital education offerings and build out a general insurance component within its existing “My Money Dream” program. On IAG’s side, the insurer intends to draw on FNF’s body of research to adjust how it trains staff and structures customer-facing services for First Nations clients.
FNF operates as a national, Indigenous-led nonprofit. Its work centres on financially educating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities through programs that account for cultural context – covering areas such as budgeting, money management, and building financial confidence. The organisation does not have a prior specialisation in general insurance; the module to be developed under this partnership would mark a new area of scope for the platform.
For IAG, the rationale is tied to a gap the insurer has publicly acknowledged: that First Nations peoples face structural obstacles in accessing general insurance products. The partnership is framed as one mechanism for addressing that, both through consumer education and through internal changes to IAG’s own processes. IAG CEO retail insurance Australia Julie Batch said the company sees a direct obligation to act on access barriers. “As Australia’s largest general insurer with the purpose to make your world a safer place, we recognise we have an important role to play in responsibly addressing barriers preventing First Nations peoples from accessing insurance and ensuring our products and services are designed to be equitable and available to all,” Batch said.
FNF CEO Leah Bennett, a Wiradjuri and Ngiyampaa woman, pointed to the structural constraints that small Indigenous-led nonprofits face when working on systemic issues. In her view, corporate partnerships are not incidental – they determine what is operationally possible. “As a small not-for-profit Indigenous-led organisation, our voice and impact are strengthened greatly when we have allies inside financial institutions who are committed to making a lasting impression on the lives and livelihoods of First Nations communities. We know that there is urgent work to do to address systemic financial exclusion and intergenerational disadvantage. Through sharing our insights and increasing understanding of the challenges and barriers, we hope to make a sustainable impact for First Nations peoples,” Bennett said.
IAG has indicated the FNF partnership sits within two existing internal policy frameworks: a Financial Inclusion Action Plan (FIAP) and a Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP). The latter includes a stated objective to contract with Indigenous-led organisations that generate measurable social, environmental, and economic outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. The partnership does not involve a disclosed funding figure. What has been confirmed is that FNF will use the arrangement to extend its digital program reach, and that IAG will use FNF’s research outputs to inform changes to its workplace policies and customer support structures.
The practical significance lies in the insurance module itself. If the “My Money Dream” platform – which already has an established user base in Indigenous communities – adds a general insurance stream, it could function as a direct pipeline for improving product literacy among a demographic that the industry has historically underserved. The downstream effect on policy uptake and claims behaviour would depend on the module’s reach and adoption, neither of which has been specified at this stage.
The IAG-FNF announcement is one of several First Nations-related moves by Australian insurers this year. In April, IAG extended its arrangement with the Aboriginal Carbon Foundation (AbCF) for three years, continuing support for cultural burn programs as a tool for reducing bushfire risk – a concern IAG has flagged as growing in severity due to climate-driven conditions. A separate March announcement from IAG and First Nations Economics confirmed a $120,000 scholarship commitment over three years for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women studying finance, economics, or business, with internship and graduate program pathways attached.
The Bupa Foundation separately directed $150,000 in March across three Indigenous-led organisations – Malpa, Weenthunga Health Network, and Deadly Ed Foundation – focused on health education and career entry for First Nations students. QBE’s Foundation opened its 2026 local grants round in February, offering $50,000 grants targeting climate resilience and inclusion, with Deadly Science – an Indigenous STEM organisation servicing more than 800 remote and regional schools – cited as a prior recipient.
