Australia has a developed, sophisticated, well regulated and highly competitive insurance sector. The Australian insurance market is the twelfth largest globally and fourth largest in the region.

Australia's insurance market is generally segmented into three sectors:

• Life insurers – offering risk related insurance and pension products (referred to as superannuation products)
• Health Insurers – offering private health insurance to compliment Medicare, the Australian government health care scheme
• General insurers – offering all insurance other than life and health insurance.

The life and general insurance markets have a mix of strong domestic and international competitors, while the private health insurance is predominantly domestic with a significant number operating as not-for-profit entities.

The sophistication of the Australian insurance market has attracted a number of leading international competitors including brokers (AON, Marsh, Willis, JLT), underwriters (Allianz, BUPA, Zurich, AMP, AXA, Tower, MetLife) and reinsurers (General Re, Munich Re and Swiss Re).