Thousands of Freedom Insurance clients may be entitled to financial remediation, Karen Chester says. -AAP Image
Some 83,600 people who were pressured into buying dud insurance or got the runaround when they tried to cancel have been repaid more than $100 million.
Hold tight - we’re checking permissions before loading more content
The vulnerable Freedom Insurance customers, who took out insurance products between 2010 and 2018, were subjected to "harmful sales and retention practices", the corporate regulator said.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has now secured $102 million in remediation for those customers.
Freedom Insurance sold a variety of products including life and funeral insurance.
It used pressure tactics over the phone to sell the products, which were not properly explained or were of limited value, according to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority.
"ASIC stepped in and banned the unsolicited 'cold call' telephone sales of direct life insurance in 2019 and subsequently commenced enforcement action," ASIC deputy chairwoman Karen Chester said on Wednesday.
Freedom Insurance went into liquidation in 2020.
Ms Chester said there could be thousands more customers entitled to financial remediation who have not yet come forward.
"We encourage Freedom Insurance customers from between 2010 and 2018 who believe they were mis-sold a policy, or who tried to cancel their policy without success, to contact their insurers and be assessed for remediation," she said.
13°C