Rest pays $40k over misleading statements

ASIC issued two infringement notices to the industry fund for misleading statements it made after charging more than 2000 members for insurance cover they were not supposed to have.

The regulator said Rest made false or misleading representations in annual statements and emails to members, indicating they had active death or TPD cover in place when they should not have.

More than 2000 members who had previously cancelled, chosen not to receive, lost, or otherwise didn't hold cover in the fund were impacted, with Rest having inadvertently activated insurance cover for them.

ASIC alleged that in sending the statements and emails, Rest falsely stated or misled members into believing it had the right to activate cover and deduct premiums from their super account when it did not.

This occurred between August 2024 and January 2025, ASIC said, fining Rest a total of $37,560.

Some 934 members received emails headed 'Changes to your insurance cover'. For this, Rest was fined $18,780.

In the meantime, 1456 members received annual statements that stated they had active cover when they did not or should not have. It was also fined $18,780 for this.

"ASIC seeks to enhance public confidence in the superannuation industry by encouraging Rest and other superannuation trustees to maintain adequate systems to prevent administrative errors that erode superannuation balances and to act quickly when they become aware of an error to avoid misleading members," ASIC said.

Rest paid the infringement notices on September 22.

In a statement, it said: "Rest members rightly expect the highest level of service, and the experience of the impacted members clearly fell short of these expectations in this instance."

"We are deeply sorry to these members for any inconvenience caused, and that our initial communications with respect to their insurance cover were not as clear as they should have been.

"We have reviewed our member communications to make them clearer and to align with the expectations of our members and ASIC."

This article first appeared on Financial Standard

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