Your life insurance company can no longer spy on you in the loo under the first code of conduct for Australia's life insurance companies.
Lactation rooms, change rooms, inside your house, hospitals and court rooms are also now off-limits for the surveillance arms of Australia's biggest life insurance companies.
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CommInsure's 'nastiness'
Arthritis patient Michael Gill says CommInsure wanted him to cease his medication so his bones would deform to prove his claim.
The toileting habits of Australia's unwell had become a point of keen interest for Australia's largest insurance companies due to some total and permanent disability products requiring customers not being able to self-toilet or eat before they can qualify for a payout.
The code was released by the Financial Services Council on Tuesday and also includes updated definitions of heart attack, stroke and cancer.
![Andrew Grech, who joined Slater & Gordon in 1994, forfeited his short-term bonus for 2016 after a horror year.](/web/20161014103015im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/n/6/l/q/y/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.grzwhl.png/1476228610154.jpg)
The code was developed this year after the CommInsure scandal in which terminally ill patients were denied payouts because they weren't sick enough and other legitimate claims rejected under increasingly dubious reasons.
But before we all get too excited about peeing in peace, the code does not cover people with life insurance policies held through their super fund, equivalent to around 70 per cent of policies.
Which means for CBD and thousands of other Australians, there will be no such bathroom respite.
FCS chief executive Sally Loane said of the code that "in a number of areas it is ground-breaking self-regulation". And self-restraint.
![Telstra chairman John Mullen and chief executive Andy Penn at the company's annual meeting.](/web/20161014103015im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/z/i/k/i/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.grzwhl.png/1476427288391.jpg)
Loane told CBD's colleague: "Surveillance is legal in every state. So it really is vastly improved on the existing law as it is today."
Gut slug
Slater and Gordon chief executive Andrew Grech "forfeited" his bonus in 2016 after the company's accounting issues, massive write-downs and a swingeing loss.
![Illustration: John Shakespeare.](/web/20161014103015im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/z/y/t/j/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.grzwhl.png/1476228610154.jpg)
Grech's horror year included its purchase of the $1 billion business death star also known as Quindell's professional services business. The Quindell business quickly blew up and led to both companies restating their accounts and grabbing a hospital pass from bankers.
Now, Slater and Gordon's annual report reveals Grech, whose total remuneration for 2016 was $637,265, and his key management personnel colleagues will also face a new clawback provision starting in 2017.
"The policy enables Slater and Gordon to claw back certain elements of an executive's remuneration if there has been a misstatement of Slater and Gordon's financial statements which results in the executive receiving a reward which exceeds the outcome that would have been achieved had the misstatement not been made."
A spokeswoman for the company told CBD the new clawback policy would not be retrospective and only affect remuneration earned after 2017.
CBD reckons if Slater and Gordon's senior executives can repeat the comprehensive disaster that was 2016 they deserve a bonus.
Slater and Gordon's UK boss Ken Fowlie and Australia chief Hayden Stephens also passed up their bonuses.
Dolphin, not shark
Telstra chairman John Mullen might be urging shareholders to fight back against the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's review into mobile domestic roaming.
But it's the smaller things that are bugging some investors at Andy Penn's telecommunications house of the future annual meeting on Tuesday.
One shareholder arced up about the use of old technology after a visiting Telstra technician showed up at his residence with a Dolphin torch.
"LED torches last longer. We are having old technology, not a LED torch but a globe torch," the shareholder said.
"We need to change our torches!"
Mullen said he got the message and would check what kind of torches were at head office.
But if some shareholders were upset about Telstra's old technology, others were worried about "new" technology.
When Mullen was asked why Telstra charges for a customer to pay a bill in person, he replied there were a host of other ways to pay your bill.
"What if someone doesn't believe in credit cards?"
Imagine how hard it would be for Mullen to convince his shareholders to invest in the next big unicorn when there are Telstra investors who don't believe in credit cards.