Shine Lawyers has filed a claim in the Federal Court of Victoria this week against AMP Financial Planning, Hillross Financial Services and AMP Life.
The AMP claim has followed another class action launched against the wealth giant earlier this week, on behalf of AMP Financial Planning advisers.
The action is one of three the legal firm has said it will file against institutions for exorbitant life insurance policies, with plans to launch claims against CBA and BT in the coming weeks.
Shine has estimated more than half a million consumers were charged excessive premiums and could be eligible to join one of the three class actions.
Shine class actions practice leader Craig Allsopp said the firms sold unsuspecting customers overpriced in-house life, income protection and TPD cover, despite knowing there were equivalent or better policies with lower premiums available through other insurers.
Shine has invited customers who have bought an AMP Flexible Lifetime Policy provided by AMP Financial Planning, Charter Financial Planning or Hillross Financial Services to participate.
AMP indicated it will be defending the proceedings.
Meanwhile a CBA spokesperson confirmed the group is aware of Shine is investigating a potential class action in relation to certain CommInsure policies sold through advisers.
Similarly, Shine will be going after a CommInsure life or income protection policy provided through Commonwealth Financial Planning appointed advisers, Financial Wisdom, Count Financial or BW Financial Advice.
Customers who hold or previously held a BT Super for Life, BT Super for Life Westpac Group, BT SuperWrap, BT SuperWrap Essentials, BT Panorama Super or BT Superannuation Invest Fund plans between 2014 and 2020 have also been invited to come forward.
“We argue all three financial services providers behaved in a way that was unfair and illegal,” Mr Allsopp said.
“The sheer number of people affected by these premium rorts shows we’re not just talking about a few bad apples but systemic misconduct in the industry.”
He added the amount of money lost by customers varied from a “couple of hundred to several thousand dollars”.
“The reality is, without class actions supported by litigation funders, most victims of would likely never get their money back,” Mr Allsopp said.
ifa has contacted BT for comment, but is still yet to receive a response.
So if Shine win, can the people part of the class action then sue them, because Maurice Blackburn could have done it cheaper?
Wow, risk advisers over a barrell.
On the one hand, in the sights of the regulator for “churning”, which often was to get better-priced policies for customers. Who can forget the 2014 ASIC report on Life Insurance.
On the other hand, class-action lawyers, taking action that risk advisers were not “churning” enough.
I realise I’m using very blunt description here, but these are blunt instruments in play (ASIC, Class-Actions). There is no doubt there were some risk salespeople who didn’t deserve to be called advisers. Seriously, among all this malarky, where do you draw the line on appropriate. Too much collateral damage.
rip off ? makes no sense as these policies were usually individually underwritten. Is it perhaps that shine are chasing down that adviser’s had restricted risk lists to just in house products ( although there were ways to look at other providers) ?
Shine have now taken over from Slater & Gordon and Maurice Blackburn as the true bottom dwelling sharks in suits lawyers for class actions.
How do they know the policies were not fit for purpose when all they have based this on is the premium, not the terms and conditions of the policies. What about the personal health and circumstances of the life insured?
This is like suing Toyota on behalf of those who bought a Toyota when the salesman should have told the buyer that they could get an equivalent vehicle by buying a Holden which had a lower price.
I also note that Shine the slimes have been promoting using them to make TPD claims through super, but no mention of the outrageous fee they will deduct from any claim. They don’t tell the client that they could get a higher payout by going direct to the super fund or insurance company.
Complete lack of ethics in the legal fraternity in this class action area.
This is a profession which needs a Royal Commission investigations. Will never happen of course as all RCs are run by lawyers who are a protected species.
Yep the concept of a Fiduciary and Best Interest was not really taught/ glossed over when it was introduced in 2013. Pretty sure, given training, about 85% of advisers still today, don’t actually realize what it truly means. Any adviser that’s on ASIC register now has a Fiduciary obligation. I can understand AMP or Stateplus won’t provide you training so hopefully when you’re forced back to school you’ll learn.
At least you got your BOLR, your subsidized business costs and a black BMW. Pitty your clients got expensive in house insurance products.
It’s called going after the softest target.
Can the legal trolls please stop trolling this page.
There was never any law that said you had to recommend the cheapest policy. Advisers should look out because AMP will say that the premium includes adviser commission and this could be lowered by the adviser to achieve the required discount to make it the cheapest policy. Therefore, it is the advisers fault (again).
How about the best interests duty introduced under FOFA.
This is again a reason why we should have self licensing, when you work for AMP or IOOF or BT they force you to sell their own financial/insurance products by only putting their own products on the APL and by getting their compliance vultures to hassle you for trying to recommend any other product that is better.
Although I am sure there was some bad advisors who were pushing their licensees products I’m sure the majority of advisors had no choice.
This is why we need a complete ban on any licensee who creates financial products employing advisors who advise on financial products the conflicts of interest are too great
That’s why the best thing is to self license and get rid of licensees we don’t need them we can use Kaplan/FPA/AFA/SMSF association for CPD, Lonsec/Morningstar/Clime Direct for investment research and specialist financial planning law firms for complex compliance issues. My old licensee was using all of these providers and then trying to white label it as their own services so cut out the middle man
So let me get this right. Everytime an underwriter’s premium increases to the point where an alternative option becomes more economical, Shine Lawyers expect that we should replace the policy or risk facing court action for charging clients excessive premiums. Sounds like ‘churning’ to me ???
Or maybe just fulfilling your Best Interest Duty?
A series of replies to comments all with the same disdainful tone towards advisers, even when the original comments are decent. What is your purpose?
Does anyone know how Shine Lawyers are dealing with these SOLICITORS’ DUTIES TO CLIENTS:
– act in a client’s best interests.
– avoid any compromise to their integrity and professional independence.
– avoid any conflict of interests.
– maintain client’s confidences.
– disclose any updates or changes regarding costs to the client.
There seems to be A LOT of angry and upset people in the media stories who think these tenent’s were not followed by the firm.
I’m a little lost here.
Just my 40% worth.
Easier said than done to write a new policy especially when the alternate policy may have exclusions, the client develops and adverse medical condition which results in exclusions not on the existing policy or can’t be underwritten. Worse still the Chaeper provider may have an abismal claims payment history.
The Class action also needs to consider the additional cost to switch which requires a a compliant advice document. That can’t be done for free. There is lot more to this than simply saying a party is not acting in Best Interests because there is a cheaper product available.
Each case will need to be looked at on its merits, not simply saying everyones circumstances are the same.
It will be interesting to see how much resilience the Banks and AMP have or whether they simply pay out some cash to make it go away.
Realistically if there is no impediment to move that’s probably exactly what we should be doing. Take it to market every year and go with the cheapest, most appropriate option. That’s what smart people do with home and contents and car insurance. The waters get muddied with clients having underwriting issues though and in those cases it’s the consideration and discussion with the clients of their options that will save you from narcissistic ambulance chasers like shine.
This madness with these Scum Layers has to stop. Can’t wait for them to be taken to task over huge fees they take
People are willing to pay for legal advice. Just think about that for a moment.
Why do they have legal aid then, and why dont the class action participants pay fees upfront instead of out of the winnings after your massive cuts? Why do lawyers offer no win no fee? Glass houses?
People aren’t willing to pay for legal advice, that is why these petty class actions come about.
Is ‘no win no fee’ really clients willing to pay for legal advice? It seems like people unwilling or unable to pay for advice upfront trading off exorbitant fees for the possibility of an outcome. And we all know that if the ‘no win no fee’ lawyers wont take on your case unless they know it’s a slam dunk from the outset. And they still take 30 – 40% even when they know it’s an easy win.
This beggars belief that a ‘so-called’ legal firm would show themselves openly to be so incompetent.
Why not sue Rolls Royce for selling a car when they should have directed the buyer to a Morris Minor which was capable of the same function for far less! It’s called choice! The integrity of AMP (?) policies is not in question here!
Shine should go back to chasing ambulances rather than creating the accidents!
Spot on.
You know all lawyers require a degree and admission to the relevant governing body to practice, right? Don’t you think it’s ironic to call lawyers incompetent when the financial advice industry is pushing back against basic education standards?
I’ll just wait for Shine to have a crack at all the Industry Fund advice that either didn’t address the quality of their inhouse insurance, or were not recommended an alternative insurer.
They will never do that because all Socialists stick together.
The irony that the “amount of money lost by customers varied from a couple of hundred to several thousand dollars”…. comes from a business that stands to make a small fortune from these (same) people by taking a large percentage of payouts. Talk about a Double standard.
Here is an example of Shine’s wonderful public service in action “In the Williamtown, Oakey and Tindal RAAF bases PFAS class action, costs will take $86 million of the $212.5 million accepted as settlement from the Commonwealth.”
You might think it is ironic but that doesn’t change the fact that the advice industry has dirty hands.
I’ll be very interested to see how your firm deals with this Mr Pot or Mrs Kettle.
Oh that’s funny, like most lawyers you aren’t quite as clever as you think you are. Maybe you should do some more coke bought with funds taken from disadvantaged people? His point was that while the advice industry has been dirty personal injury lawyers have been orders of magnitude worse.
Wowzers by the time ASIC and all the buzzard lawyers are finished raping and pillaging the financial services industry there will be no insto’s left
And the insto’s are trying to bankrupt small financial planning businesses where they can to re-compensate them even though those small businesses were guided by the insto’s re compliance and paid them thousands of dollars a year for their poor guidance. No one will be left! Everyone is suing everyone. I so love the world we live in.
What part of the process was a “rip off “?
Are the lawyers alleging that no alternative policies were offered?
So Shine lawyers have their AFSL ready to go now as they will be providing advice around financial product and instructing their clients accordingly ??
Class action to sue institutions for excessive premiums and then charge excessive ‘commissions’ on the proceeds for their clients. Got to love the irony of these lawyers.
“The sheer number of people affected by these premium rorts shows we’re not just talking about a few bad apples but systemic misconduct in the industry.” Takes one to know one.
The advice industry is tanking and you want to have a crack at class actions? Worry about your own backyard.
Not class actions just the hypocritical lawyers that bleed their clients of half their proceeds while arguing someone else wasn’t ethical. I’ll end it there as you may add this as a $300 disbursement on one of your clients, assuming you’re a lawyer.
I agree, people in Glass Houses should’t throw stones
Why do you both assume they are a lawyer? Maybe a legal background with advice experienced? Perhaps if you pass the ethics exams that have been[i] imposed [/i][i][/i]on the advice industry you might come to a different perspective on things.
Whataboutism is a marvelous way to deflect. Are you able to respond to the substance?