Australian insurance providers have begun including specific crypto-asset exclusions in their professional indemnity coverage for financial services licensees, despite a growing demand for informed crypto investment advice.
According to Jared Timms from PNO Insurance, many insurers have felt the need to clarify their stance on crypto-assets and may soon update their policies accordingly. He stated in a recent blog:
Having spoken to the major insurers of AFS licensees, the feedback has been there is no intention to cover advice from financial planners around cryptocurrency and it is likely specific exclusions may soon start to appear on Financial Planning PI policies.
Jared Timms, senior account manager, PNO Insurance
Timms warns: “Any financial planner considering recommending investments into cryptocurrency should think about the uninsured risk they are potentially exposing to their business.”
Insurance and regulatory roadblocks were key topics of discussion at the Professional Planner’s Researcher Forum in Sydney last week, where some financial services firms expressed an openness to adopting digital assets.
What Does It Mean For Crypto Investors?
Insurance industry caution indicates that financial advisers covered by these policies cannot include crypto-assets in their approved product list and therefore cannot provide any advice on these assets without exposing themselves to significant risk.
For now, crypto investors looking for advice will generally have to continue to look somewhere other than to qualified financial advisers. Despite this, crypto in Australia continues its slow march toward legitimacy.
Recent news such as the CommBank offering crypto services to its customers, the announcement of the first Australian Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs, and the CEO of the ASX predicting that crypto companies will soon start to play a bigger role in Australia’s tech sector all indicate crypto is gaining ground.
Interestingly, this lack of insurance cover for advice on crypto-assets now leaves some organisations, such as CommBank, in the potentially awkward position of offering investment products on which they cannot provide any advice.