About

Michael Tropea has been general counsel and company secretary for Australia at multinational insurer AIA since 2012, having added responsibility for the New Zealand function in 2017, bringing with him over a decade’s experience in the insurance industry and extensive legal experience in private practice in Australia and Hong Kong. In 2015 Tropea restructured AIA’s Australian legal team to introduce a “business partnering” model. As a result, the team is structured into dedicated business partners to service each key business channel to meet the dual key objectives of providing accurate, commercial and timely legal services in support of strategic objectives, and to identify, minimise and manage legal risk.

This has reduced the firm’s external counsel spend by 25%, also achieved by implementing innovative “hotline” services with external counsel, and improving internal processes and resources (including template Q&As, checklists, letters and agreements) to empower the business and allowing the team to prioritise “value-adding” work. Tropea has also been instrumental in developing a program to provide aspiring lawyers with practical legal training and exposure to an in-house environment. This has led to the legal team becoming an exporter of talent, with graduates of the program landing positions in AIA Australia’s legal, audit, strategy and enterprise risk teams. Most recently, Tropea led the legal aspects of the $3.8bn AUD acquisition (subject to regulatory approval) of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s life insurance business in Australia (CommInsure) and life and health insurance businesses in New Zealand (Sovereign) and entering a 20-year bank-assurance partnership, signed in September 2017. He took a lead role on all legal aspects of the transaction, including drafting and negotiating transaction documents, legal due diligence, managing external counsel and regulatory approvals in both jurisdictions.

On completion AIA will become the number one life insurer in Australia and New Zealand. Tropea highlighted that ‘it was hugely fulfilling to work on such a momentous transaction for AIA, and I gained great insights working across multiple jurisdictions and departments, learning from external counsel in three countries, engaging the board of directors, group level executives and senior management of the organisation’. Additionally, Tropea took the lead role on high profile regulatory matters, including the financial services Royal Commission, Joint Parliamentary Committee Inquiry into life insurance, the working-groups drafting the Life Code and Insurance in Superannuation Code, ASIC Claims Review and recent regulatory reviews in New Zealand. Tropea also advised on significant legislative reforms, such as life insurance framework changes, unfair contracts and data breach notification regimes and supported the business to ensure compliance.

He also led the legal team through some important litigation including positive outcomes on high risk claims matters, including AIA Australia’s success in the case of AIA Australia Limited v Richards, where a beneficial new precedent was set for the contention that an insurer may prospectively cancel a policy if a fraudulent claim has been made.