Stanley Yates does not want a fussy funeral – just a simple cremation.
“I don’t want any ceremony – just cremate me and send my ashes to my granddaughter. She can spread them wherever she wants to spread them,” the 77-year-old told NITV News.
And for that simple funeral, the Dubbo local has been contributing to an insurance scheme for more than three decades.
“I have been paying $30 every fortnight since the 80s or 90s – I can’t even remember, it’s been that long,” he said.
But the funeral insurer, the Gold Coast-based Youpla Group, formerly known as Aboriginal Community Benefit Fund, went into liquidation in March this year.
“I feel really bad about it – I feel really bad about this company. Because when I die, I ain’t got any money to cremate me, you know.”
Mr Yates is not alone.
Mob Strong adovcacy
Sydney-based Mob Strong Debt Help – a non-profit organisation that offers free finance-related legal advice to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in Australia, estimates tens of thousands of First Nations people have been left without funeral cover by the collapse of Youpla.
“The liquidators show there are about 18,000 or so policyholders who have lost out because of the collapse of ACBF,” Mob Strong solicitor Mark Holden told NITV News.
“However, we find that because a lot of these people were hooked up to Centrepay to be able to pay for these premiums, we estimate that up to 32,000 people have lost out over the years."
According to Mr Holden, this is having a devastating impact on the community.
“We’ve received about 1,000 calls so far from people who’ve been affected by this. Nearly all these people are very upset, angry and desperate for information,” he said.
“A lot of them also feel a lot of shame because they are no longer able to take care of the funeral costs and now how to rely on their family,” he said.
Youpla has not only been accused of aggressively selling funeral insurance to First Nations people but for deliberately spreading misinformation, too.
“For the past four to five years, we’ve been assisting our clients in getting refunds from ACBF,” Mr Holden said.
“Because ACBF had misled them into thinking that they were an Aboriginal-owned organisation, providing a savings fund when in actual fact they are a failed insurance scheme.”
Solicitor Mark Holden of Mob Strong Debt Help said the Youpla funeral fund had operated unethically under the eye of the government for more than 30 years. Source: Supplied
Under a blind eye
There were early warning signs about Youpla.
As ACBF, the company faced court action from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) for being misleading and deceptive in 2001, and then again in 2003.
Despite those, the company was allowed to collect millions of dollars from Centrelink payments in form of premiums from policyholders, using the government-run Centrepay system, between 2001 to 2017.
“This has been going on for the past three decades, [right] under the eyes of the government,” Mr Holden said.
“Everyone knew that this whole thing was going to collapse, including the government. And nothing was done to curtail it.
“And now the only people who’ve been affected by this are the First Nation communities, who are very vulnerable because they were targeted by ACBF.”
Complaints against Youpla to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) have doubled – from 500 to more than 1,000 – in the past two months.
Before the liquidation of the company, 178 decisions against Youpla were issued by the AFCA, granting policyholders $1.4 million in compensation. But 61 determinations – amounting to about $500,000 – still remain unpaid.
And now that the company has been liquidated, the fate of all other policyholders is up in the air, Mr Holden said.
The path forward
Mob Strong Debt Help has called on the government to bail out the policyholders and Mr Holden said the response has been positive so far.
“So far the new federal government has been receptive to helping those who have lost out here.
“We've just started having talks with the government about possible compensation. That is a positive step,” he said, adding the help could not come fast enough.
“We need to be able to have a plan here to be able to provide compensation as soon as possible. If not yesterday, then as soon as possible,” he said.
ASIC has been conducting rigorous investigations into the conduct of Youpla since 2020 and Mr Holden said, even though the company has been liquidated, the investigations should continue.
“The fact that ACBF has collapsed and gone to liquidation should not mean that ASIC should drop their investigations because it’s very important to have a court finding to reflect the practices,” he said.
“We want to validate what we've been saying to the government for over three decades now,” he said.
Mr Holden also has a piece of advice for First Nations people who have been left without funeral cover.
“For those who have lost out and cannot afford to pay their funeral, they should still make their claim with the liquidators. So that if there is going to be any future compensation, they will be the next in line to be able to get that covered,” he said.
