Royal & Sun Alliance Life Assurance Australia Ltd v Feeney No. Scciv-01-575

The case before the court involved Royal & Sun Alliance Life Assurance Australia Ltd and Mr. Feeney, with the primary dispute concerning the terms of an offer for interim life insurance cover. The matter was heard in the Supreme Court. The central legal issue was whether the contents of a certificate, which was part of the documentation provided to Mr. Feeney, constituted conditions of the offer for interim cover. Specifically, the court had to determine if Royal & Sun Alliance Life Assurance did all that was reasonable to bring the certificate to Mr. Feeney's attention and whether its inclusion in the documentation was sufficient to bind him to its terms.

The court examined the manner in which Royal & Sun Alliance Life Assurance presented the certificate within the Customer Information Brochure. It noted that while the certificate was listed in the Table of Contents and located immediately before the relevant pages discussing interim cover, there was no explicit reference to it under the section titled "Interim Cover." Additionally, the court considered that the brochure's layout and content were under Royal & Sun Alliance Life Assurance's control, and it could have easily included a more specific reference to the certificate. Given these circumstances, the court concluded that Royal & Sun Alliance Life Assurance did not do all that was reasonable to ensure that Mr. Feeney was aware of the certificate's contents. Consequently, the court found that the certificate's contents were not conditions of the offer made in the brochure.

As a result, the court held that Mr. Feeney's delivery of a completed application form constituted an effective acceptance of the offer for interim cover, as outlined in the brochure. Therefore, the appeal by Royal & Sun Alliance Life Assurance was dismissed. The court's decision aligned with the reasons provided by Bleby J, who observed that the brochure was extensive and covered various types of insurance, making it unlikely for an applicant to scrutinize the certificate specifically for interim cover terms. Instead, the court determined that applicants would naturally refer to the initial pages of the brochure for detailed explanations of the insurance offered.