Slater and Gordon is running the action on a no win, no fee basis and there is no litigation funder involved. It is also considering further actions against the other banks.

Slaters does not have a dollar value attached to this particular action, however it says it had registrations from "hundreds of customers" and "believe that there are thousands out there with similar claims".

When Commonwealth Bank was pinged for similar conduct, it refunded $10 million to more than 65,000 customers in 2017.

Pressure selling

Joining the class action will be customers such as Jessica Purcell, who was a full-time university student when she was pressured to take out consumer credit insurance.

She was a casual employee at the time and therefore ineligible to claim the policy if she became unemployed.

"It was sold to me like it was something that I had to take out," she said.

The class action comes after Slater and Gordon announced in March it is investigating potential class actions against banks for selling tens of millions of dollars worth of insurance that offered people little or no coverage.


The action also comes after the banking royal commission revealed Commonwealth Bank had been selling CreditCard Plus insurance since at least 2003 to people who couldn't claim the policy as they were already unemployed when they took out the policy.

Little or no benefit

Slater and Gordon's Andrew Paull said NAB pushed the insurance policy, "reaping millions in premiums while doing so".

"Most were existing NAB customers and the bank should have known the insurance was likely to be of little or no benefit to them," he said.

Mr Paull said NAB admitted in the royal commission the life cover for the policy provided minimal value to many customers.

"Both NAB and MLC were in much stronger bargaining positions than any of the people they were contacting and selling this insurance to.

"They have taken advantage of hundreds, potentially thousands of their loyal customers."

Rolling litigation


NAB is the first bank to be hit by a consumer class action following the banking royal commission hearings.

Slaters said this month it will sue CBA and AMP on behalf of their super fund members to recover at least $500 million, however it has not filed a lawsuit yet.

This is likely to be only the beginning of years of rolling litigation and potentially billions of dollars out of the Hayne royal commission, as Slaters' rival Maurice Blackburn is going after the bigger pie of banks over mortgage lending.

NAB chief legal and commercial counsel Sharon Cook said the bank has not been served with any legal documents from Slaters yet.

"We will consider carefully any allegations when we receive the claim. We encourage NAB customers who have questions regarding our products and services to talk to their banker or contact us," she said.

The bank has a dedicated hotline for NAB credit card insurance customers, the bank said.