The Optus mobile and internet outage today has affected customer service operations at insurers including IAG, Zurich and QBE.
Optus said early this afternoon that services were gradually being restored and it may take a few hours for all services to recover. The outages started at around 4am, affecting millions of customers nationwide, including businesses.
“Some IAG services for customers across our brands, which include NRMA Insurance, RACV Insurance, CGU and WFI, are currently impacted by the Optus mobile network and internet outage,” the insurer said earlier today.
The impact meant that customers couldn’t contact its call centre and consultants couldn’t call customers.
IAG requested that brokers log in via the broker portal to lodge and manage claims or contact relationships representatives, while alternative options were also provided to customers across its brands.
Claims consultants were available in person at the Tara Memorial Hall today to help customers impacted by the recent bushfires and are present at the Insurance Council of Australia Community Forum in Molong NSW to discuss claims related to last year’s floods, IAG said.
Zurich posted on LinkedIn that it was aware that the widespread communications outage may be impacting the ability of policyholders to contact the company.
“Our customer service teams may be unable to make outbound calls as well,” it said. “We apologise for any inconvenience this outage may cause.”
QBE says some of its inbound call centre lines were temporarily impacted, while outbound calls were unaffected. The lines were all up and running again this afternoon.
Suncorp says its voice and data services have not been directly impacted by the outage, but it’s seen some minor impacts for its people and customers who are with Optus.
Optus is yet to provide details on the cause of the failure, but CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin says there’s no indication a hack or cyber attack led to the problems.
Whether business interruption policies respond to the incident depends on causes, while wordings often require interruptions that last at least 48 or 72 hours before cover is triggered.
Berrill and Watson Lawyers Principal John Berrill says physical damage to a provider’s infrastructure can lead to cover, but time hurdles must be met.
“There is a pathway but it is very limited,” he said. “We need to know what the cause of the outage is, and most of the policies have waiting periods.”
Optus has indicted cyber issues were not believed to be the issue, and in the case of cyber, triggers and the scope of cover are complex and there’s not a standard wording.
Clyde & Co Partner Gareth Horne says the availability of cover will depend on the wording of the individual policy, but in general terms, there’s not expected to be any first party insurance cover of significance, if at all, in regards to the Optus interruption today.