Shares in the nation’s largest private health insurer tumbled 18 per cent on Wednesday, the first day of trading in almost a week, erasing about $1.7 billion from its market value. The decline came after the company confirmed that hackers accessed personal information on all 4 million of its customers and an unknown number of former members, in another escalation of the incident.
Only two weeks earlier, Medibank Private chief executive David Koczkar had told customers there was no evidence that their data had been accessed. “We’ve shared what we could when we can share it, and that does involve incomplete information. Things are moving very fast,” he said in an interview. “As soon as things become clear to me, we will share it.”
Dozens of Medibank customers have contacted this masthead to express their fury with the way Medibank has handled the incident. Lawyers are also watching closely, with a spokesman for Maurice Blackburn, which has already launched a class action-style claim against Optus, saying it was “monitoring” the situation.
Shareholder advisory group ISS said Medibank’s management and board will be under pressure at its annual meeting next month.
