Before you enter into a contract of general insurance with an insurer, you have a duty, under the Insurance Contracts Act 1984, to disclose to the insurer every matter that you know, or could reasonably be expected to know, which is relevant to the insurer’s decision whether to accept the risk of the insurance and, if so, on what terms.

Non disclosure

If you fail to comply with your duty of disclosure, the insurer may be entitled to reduce its liability under the contract in respect of a claim or may cancel the contract. If your non disclosure is fraudulent, the insurer may also have the option of avoiding the contract from its beginning.

Not sure whether something should be disclosed?

You should contact Stewart Title directly if you have any questions about your disclosure obligations or if you are aware of unapproved structures, boundary issues, encroachments or other adverse matters relating to the property which are disclosed in your contract for sale, building inspection report or are otherwise known to you including, but not limited to, building code non-compliance, dilapidation, structural integrity problems and defective workmanship issues. 

Privacy: Disclosure of Known Risks Affecting your Property

In circumstances where a known risk may be disclosed to Stewart Title in the course of Stewart providing you with our services, Stewart Title may provide affirmative cover, exclusions, exceptions or conditions on the cover it would normally provide to you. Such exclusions, exceptions and conditions are normally detailed in the Schedule B document which forms part of your title insurance policy.

In the future, a prospective purchaser of your property may request similar services from Stewart Title. In those circumstances, Stewart Title may use the information relating to the known risks for the purposes of assessing any request for our services by a purchaser of your property. Stewart may for this purpose:

• disclose the existence of the known risks to the purchaser and/or their legal or conveyancing representatives
• apply the same exclusion, exception or condition on cover in respect of the known risks to any subsequent policy which is issued to a purchaser of your property by Stewart

By availing yourself of our services you consent to our use and disclosure of the known risks, as outlined above, to any subsequent purchaser(s) or other third party(s) and their legal or conveyancing representatives who ask us to insure the property at any time in the future.

Please refer to our Privacy Policy for more information.