Achmea and other insurers agree to end usury policies

After insurance company Achmea has also reached a settlement to buy off damage claims, the file on the usury policies can soon finally be closed. Claims organizations have also reached a provisional arrangement with insurers Reaal and De Goudse in recent weeks. This puts an end to years of litigation.

This is what chairman Ab Flipse of the Vereniging Woekerpolis.nl said, which represents the interests of victims of a profiteering policy. "I expect that within a year almost all affected victims will have received compensation, then the book can be closed." Reaal, however, did not want to respond. A spokesperson for De Goudse confirms that a settlement is at an "advanced stage".

Since 1993, seven million usury policies have been sold in the Netherlands with a total value of 100 billion euros. In 2006, the Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets found that there was a lot wrong with unit-linked insurance policies. Not all of them turned out to be too expensive, but also far too complicated.

In 2008, insurers therefore reached a collective settlement with victims, in which an amount of approximately 3 billion euros was paid out. "That seems like a lot," said Flipse. "But half of the victims received nothing and the amounts received by the other half varied from a few tens to a few hundred euros."

Dissatisfaction about this led to a series of mass claims. The first settlement was in 2017 with Allianz. Then there was a long silence. Until the court in The Hague concluded in September last year that ASR and Nationale Nederlanden (NN) had charged customers far too high costs.

“That was the fuse in the powder keg,” Flipse explained. "The day after the ruling, NN's share price fell completely and the share was even briefly taken off the stock exchange. Investors were shocked. In the utmost secrecy, ASR contacted us after a few weeks. Five weeks later, there was a settlement.”

In total, almost 5 billion has been paid out to victims. The Wookerpolis Association estimates that the total damage is at least twenty times higher, around 100 billion. "But the insurance industry cannot afford that. The money is not there."

Flipse is satisfied with the result. "Justice has been done and the patience of our members has been rewarded. The insurers have chosen not to continue litigating, but to close the file."

Achmea settles usury policy affair for tens of millions of euros

Insurer Achmea settles the so-called usury policy affair for tens of millions of euros. As a result, almost 30,000 consumers who took out investment insurance years ago will still receive compensation for the excessive costs they were charged. The reimbursements per policy vary from several hundred euros to more than 10,000 euros.

An agreement worth 60 million euros has been concluded with claim clubs Consumer Claim, Woekerpolis.nl, Woekerpolisproces, Wakkerpolis and the Consumers' Association. With this deal, Achmea follows rivals ASR and NN Group, which recently also settled with the organizations. In addition, the insurer is setting aside 25 million euros for "distressing cases" that are not affiliated with one of the interest groups.

The usury policy affair has been on the minds of the financial world for many years. In 2006 it came to light that many investment insurance policies had been charged far too high costs since the 1990s. Claims organizations have since been trying to mobilize victims to obtain compensation from insurers.

The settlement at Achmea is lower than at ASR and NN Group, which both allocated hundreds of millions for this. But as a result of previous takeovers, these insurers also included the usury policies previously sold by Aegon and Delta Lloyd. Achmea only concerns investment insurance policies sold in the Netherlands through the brands Avéro Achmea, Centraal Beheer, FBTO, Interpolis and their legal predecessors.

Achmea has also compensated many customers in the past. According to the insurer, these compensations amounted to 380 million euros. The group says that the new settlement can definitively put an end to the ongoing legal proceedings in the file. This view is also shared by the claim organizations. "This book can now finally be closed. That gives peace and satisfaction," said the negotiators.

The parties involved will continue to work out the practical implementation of the scheme in the coming months. Consumers who can expect compensation will receive a message about what exactly the scheme means for them. When at least 90 percent of those affected agree to their proposal, the deal becomes final.