Shine Lawyers has filed a class action in the Federal Court alleging that Aussie Home Loans sold junk insurance to up to 30,000 customers. The claim is that borrowers who were sold Mortgage Protection Plan or My Protection Plan policies by Aussie “were misled into purchasing a product of little or no value”. Shine’s class action practice leader Kione Johnson said: “The policy promised mortgage holders assistance for home loan repayments in the event of illness or injury, loss of employment or death. We allege it was an unnecessary expense, given most customers may have already held life insurance policies that offered them this security and coverage, and/or because Aussie’s policy only provided cover in a limited range of circumstances.”  Shine will ask the court to examine whether brokers who sold the policies breached their duties to act in customers’ best interests, and whether selling the insurance amounted to misleading and deceptive conduct. Shine is inviting people who bought either of the policies from February 2018 onwards to register for the class action. Aussie Home Loans was a subsidiary of Commonwealth Bank during part of the period when the alleged mis-selling took place. In 2020, CBA merged Aussie with online broker Lendi, in a deal that saw CBA retain 45 per cent of the combined business. The action is being partly funded by litigation funder Woodsford.