Kiwi insurer Tower has committed to remove the duty of disclosure from its sales and claims processes before the end of the year.

Chief executive Richard Harding says that there had been a bit of talk in the news lately about how little trust people had in insurers and there seemed to be some truth in it.

One of the things that concerned people most was not knowing whether their claims would be accepted, he said.

"It comes back to the tricky, catch-all question that insurers can ask when you buy insurance, along the lines of ‘is there anything else that we should know?’ - which means that if customers unwittingly leave something out, they can be disappointed when it comes time to making a claim.

"Because of these concerns, we’ve started removing this question from our systems, processes and policies, and by the end of the year, people who buy home, contents or car insurance from Tower will no longer be asked this question."

Harding said in its place would be something called "Trust Both Ways", which made it Tower’s responsibility to ask the right questions when customers come to buy insurance.

"All customers will have to do is answer the questions we ask truthfully," said Harding.

"We’re doing this because we trust our customers to be honest with us, and in turn they can trust that we’ll pay their claim. It’s about giving our customers certainty.

"Along with simple-to-understand policy documents, Tower customers will know up-front what they’re covered for and will be able to take comfort from the fact that if they’ve been honest with us from the outset, their claim will be accepted and paid.

"Like we did with risk-based pricing, we led the way openly and honestly talking about these changes and we commit to this level of transparency for all changes we make that impact our customers.”

It is likely that reform of insurance law will make this approach mandatory but commentators said Tower’s move was likely to put some pressure on other insurers to act before they were legally required to.

AA Insurance removed the generic disclosure questions form its car, home and contents policies and processes more than 10 years ago.

“At AA Insurance, we recognise that we’re the experts in insurance, not our customers, so we commit to asking all the questions we need to find a cover that's right for our customers. We pride ourselves on focussing on the customer and doing what’s right for them,” said Aaron Dickinson, head of product.