A court has dismissed a former Resilium Insurance Broking authorised representative’s proceedings against the network for alleged breach of client confidentiality.

Nest Insurance Consult claimed the confidentiality provision in its contract was broken when Resilium Insurance Broking transferred its client list to Milestone, another AR in the group.

The network gave the list to Milestone for remediation after the termination of Nest’s AR contract in November 2020, after the group found out Nest had provided insurers with wrong or false information about its clients’ ages and addresses.

Nest alleged the list contained confidential information and it suffered a loss because of the network’s actions.

But NSW Supreme Court Chief Justice in Equity David Hammerschlag ruled against the former AR last week.

He said Nest failed to prove the information was “confidential within the terms of the contract”, and Resilium Insurance Broking was entitled to pass on the list because of its statutory obligations.

He added: “The client information is [Resilium Insurance Broking’s]. The clients may have obtained their insurance through Nest, but Nest was acting as ... authorised representative and as [the network’s] agent. [Resilium Insurance Broking], not Nest, is the broker on the policies.”

Chief Justice Hammerschlag said Resilium Insurance Broking had a statutory obligation to the insureds to act efficiently, honestly and fairly, as required by law.

“It was responsible to the clients for Nest’s misconduct and exposed to them for any loss or damage suffered by them because of it. Nest’s authorisation had been terminated for good cause. In those circumstances, [it] had no choice but to act to protect those insureds, and it did so.

“How it went about this was, in my view, a matter for it.”

He dismissed the proceedings and provisionally ordered Nest to pay Resilium Insurance Broking’s costs.

Click here for the ruling.