The general insurance industry's Code watchdog has a new chair who arrives just as the rulebook she will police is being rewritten with legal teeth. In a media statement this morning, Heather Loewenthal (pictured) was publicy announced as the new independent chair of the General Insurance Code Governance Committee (GICGC), the body that monitors insurers' compliance with the General Insurance Code of Practice. Loewenthal was nominated by both the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) and the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) and officially started work yesterday, succeeding Veronique Ingram, who steps down after six years.
Loewenthal takes the chair in the same fortnight the ICA is consulting publicly on a redrafted Code - open until July 21, 2026 - that would, for the first time, make insurers' key commitments legally enforceable as part of consumer contracts, subject to Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) approval. Whoever chairs the Committee through that transition will help define what independent Code monitoring looks like when a breach is no longer just a conduct matter, but potentially a contractual one.
AFCA chief ombudsman and chief executive officer David Locke welcomed the appointment. "Heather brings a wealth of experience in financial services, governance and compliance, both in Australia and overseas," he said. "She has worked with regulators, government and industry through major reforms, and understands what it takes to build systems that work in practice."
Loewenthal built her legal, risk and compliance career at law firm Corrs Chambers Westgarth before moving to Westpac, where she also chaired the Australian Compliance Institute. She then joined ING Australia as chief risk officer and general counsel before stepping up to global chief compliance officer for ING Group, overseeing compliance operations across more than 50 countries, with further senior roles at Barclays Africa and Deutsche Bank in London.
On returning to Australia, she joined Deloitte as a partner in its Governance, Regulation and Conduct Solutions team, advising Australian organisations on strengthening compliance systems and using technology to lift operational performance, and returned to the Australian Compliance Institute board as director and then chair.
That is a career spent building and testing compliance frameworks at industrial scale - relevant experience, given what the new Code will ask of insurers. The redraft flags automatic acceptance of home and motor claims left unresolved after 12 months, a circumstances-based vulnerability definition and trauma-informed claims handling standards - obligations that will demand systems capable of proving compliance, not just asserting it. Her Deloitte work on compliance technology may prove particularly pointed as insurers digitise claims and monitoring data becomes the currency of Code oversight.
The Committee's workload is unlikely to shrink. AFCA's 2024–25 Annual Review recorded 34,231 general insurance complaints - up 17% year on year - and the Code redraft itself was born of the Parliamentary Flood Inquiry into insurers' responses to the 2022 floods and the subsequent Independent Code Review. Consumer groups are already testing the redraft's adequacy, meaning the Committee's independent monitoring will be scrutinised from both directions: by an industry adjusting to enforceable obligations, and by advocates watching whether oversight matches the new stakes.
"The Committee plays an important role in helping make sure the Code works as intended. Heather's experience will help support high standards across the industry and fair outcomes for consumers," Locke said.
Locke also paid tribute to outgoing chair Ingram, thanking her "for her service and the lasting impact she has had on accountability and good industry practice across the sector" over her six-year tenure.
For brokers, the appointment is another signal that the era of the Code as guidance is closing and the person now holding the monitoring pen has spent three decades making compliance operational. How firmly she wields it will shape claims conduct expectations across the market.
