Liquidators appointed to Freedom Insurance Group notified shareholders on Friday that they can expect a return of between zero and one-tenth of a cent per ordinary share.

Freedom, whose main business was selling funeral insurance policies via direct sales, fell victim to an ASIC crackdown on the direct sale of life insurance and also copped a mauling at the Hayne royal commission.

It stopped selling its products in October 2018. ASIC had released a report on the direct sale of life insurance a couple of months earlier, which carried significant implications for Freedom’s business.

ASIC reported that the cancellation rate for policies sold direct was very high and that the claims experience was poor. It said people were being sold product they didn’t want, couldn’t afford and which didn’t perform as expected.

The regulator said it would restrict outbound sales of life and funeral insurance to protect consumers and that it expected industry to respond with higher standards.

In December 2018 Freedom announced that it would develop a remediation program for affected customers.

It had been working on the acquisition of life insurer St Andrews Australia from Bank of Queensland as a way of diversifying its business, but that transaction was terminated the same month.

In October 2018, its chief executive Keith Chen left after an poor performance at the royal commission. The commission heard that Freedom had a record of making it very difficult for customers to cancel their cover, with staff paid bonuses based on the number of policies they “saved”.

In their circular to shareholders, liquidators Joseph Hayes and Andrew McCabe of Wexted Advisors said they had used $2.1 million collected from bank accounts to pay creditors. They are also pursuing claims against the company’s directors and officers insurance.