A group of consumers is taking insurer Achmea to court in a mass claim surrounding risky mortgages from subsidiary Staalbankiers. The more than four hundred customers are claiming more than 240 million euros in compensation from the Netherlands’ largest insurer.
Between 2004 and 2012, customers took out mortgage loans in Swiss francs. At the time, that seemed like an attractive financial product. According to the aggrieved, the loans were sold as innocuous, but turned out to be risky, and aggrieved people run the risk of mortgage debt rising to a multiple of the loan itself.
“These are so-called ‘foreign currency loans,’ in this case based on the Swiss franc,” said Adriaan de Gier, president of the Compensation Swiss Franc Loans Foundation (CZFL). “To the customer it looked like an ordinary mortgage and it was sold with the argument that the interest rate on those loans was so low. But the loans turned out to be based on a financial construction that was on edge and went off when the Swiss franc exchange rate rose. Achmea’s customers are in tremendous trouble as a result.”
Source: The Telegraaf
