Case Study - Storm Financial The financial landscape is littered with investment disasters linked to financial planners issuing questionable advice owing to conflicts of interest. The reputation of financial planners has been sullied by the consequent demise of some of these managed investment schemes. Storm Financial, one of Australia's biggest financial planning networks, collapsed in 2008 leaving about 3,000 investors facing losses of up to $1 billion. Most of the losses were incurred by retirees who were advised to double-gear into the Australian share market. That is, they were advised to re-mortgage their homes or borrow against their superannuateon in order to invest more funds than they actually had. The risk level of the plan was not relative to the risk appetite of the investors. The "know your client" rule says advice should be appropriate to the individual. In addition, the model was marketed to investors where the level of remuneration received by the adviser was directly tied to the invested amount. This was all despite being a principal member of the FPA and a signatory to its code of conduct