The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has enforced a five-year financial services ban on Perth-based adviser, Philip Leake, following an investigation that found he had failed to act in his clients’ best interests when providing advice on life insurance.
The ASIC investigation, which looked at Leake’s client files from Wealthsure Financial Services between March 2015 and January 2018, found that the adviser failed to make a reasonable assessment of what life insurance products best suited his client.
The investigation found Leake had not considered his clients’ circumstances, nor what life insurance coverage they would need or could afford.
ASIC found that Leake made false and misleading statements in his statements of advice, which claimed that he had considered his clients’ circumstances in relation to the waiting periods for income protection when he had not.
The investigation resulted from ASIC’s Life Insurance Lapse Data Project, which was established in August 2016 and focused on the surveillance of life insurance advice.
