The digitisation of payments is changing the shape of the insurance sector in Australia.
Like in the broader financial services space, advancements in technology are driving a digitisation of the overall insurance experience for both consumers and businesses. Australia’s NPP processes a total of 1.86 billion transactions a year, according to Australian Payments Plus (APP), at an average payment value of $A7 billion per day, and those numbers are expected to only get bigger.
Insurers are taking advantage of the opportunities brought by modern payment capabilities to reduce friction at key moments in the customer journey, including premium collection, claims disbursement and excess payments. These are not small flows, with data showing gross written premiums in Australia grew from $A68.3 billion in 2024 to $A71 billion in 2025.
The modern consumer increasingly expects fast, seamless, and fully digital experiences, including around how they make and receive payments. Today, payments technology offers insurers the infrastructure to provide that.
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Improving
This shift toward digital in insurance is most evident in targeted use cases such as excess payments, where insurers are improving both customer experience and internal processes.
PayTo is a tool that can provide a card-like experience through account-to-account payments, offering convenience for customers while delivering cost efficiencies for businesses. Elements like this can provide a practical entry point for insurers to test and learn before scaling more broadly across the organisation.
Through PayTo, payments can be automated, timed more precisely, and structured in ways that were not previously possible. That includes things like fractional (smaller, more frequent) payments, which can better align to customer needs and behaviours to help manage affordability.
Overall, the direction in insurance is towards a more flexible, responsive and customer-centric payment experience, enabled by the same real-time capabilities that are transforming the underlying infrastructure.
Moving claim payments to real-time is also emerging as a practical starting point for insurers. This shift has been underway for several years, with Chubb Insurance working with ANZ to process claim payments in real time in 2023.
The introduction of the confirmation of payee service has further strengthened these processes by enabling insurers to embed account validation into payment workflows, and support more secure outbound payments, particularly for claims. The service has been used more than 100 million times since it was first launched in July.
At the same time, moving to real-time payments does introduce some key considerations for insurers. Operating in a 24/7 environment requires a different approach to liquidity, controls, and how organisations think about money moving at any time.
Intuitive
For insurers considering a transition to real-time payments, a trusted partner is essential to ensure an intuitive, secure and low-friction experience.
Insurers operate under a strict regulatory and compliance framework. Many process high volumes of payments every day, and those are closely linked to core processes like premium collection, claims disbursement, and reconciliation.
A bank-grade partner can provide confidence their underlying payment infrastructure can support robust payment processing in an always-onenvironment. This can help insurers navigate this complexity, and ensure the right controls are in place, and integrate new payment capabilities into existing systems and processes.
Ultimately, this can give insurers the confidence to innovate, knowing their payment processes remain resilient, compliant, and capable of supporting both customer expectations and business growth.
For insurers, the opportunity is there for the taking. Early adopters of real-time payments are well placed to differentiate, both by improving customer experience, business to business payments, and driving greater operational efficiency.
Turlough Crowe is Senior Manager, Strategic Growth at ANZ Institutional
