Changing your super fund

Leaving your current super fund

All trading in Shield and First Guardian was stopped in June 2024 (Shield) or February 2025 (First Guardian) when fund assets were frozen. This makes it hard to switch funds.

Most people invested in Shield and First Guardian through a platform super fund – a type of super fund with an investing platform that lets you or your financial adviser choose from a large menu of investments. If you’re in this kind of fund, you may not be able to get your money out of your super fund until the liquidators finish their work. There are some things you can do though:

• you can move any money that isn’t frozen to another fund,
• you can ask your employer to pay your super contributions to a different fund,
• you can tell your super fund or adviser to stop deducting fees for advice you don’t want.

If you have a self-managed super fund (SMSF) and you want to close it down, you may need to get legal and financial advice about the best way to do this. Shutting down an SMSF is a lot more complicated than switching between regular super funds.

Cancelling financial advice fees

Most of the people who invested in Shield and First Guardian switched their super on the advice of a financial adviser. As part of the switch to the new super fund, many people signed up to pay for ongoing advice paid out of their super account. You don’t have to keep paying a financial adviser if you don’t want to – you can cancel your advice agreement any time by either:

• telling the advice business in writing you want to cancel  (e.g. email, letter, text message), or
• telling your super fund in writing to stop deducting fees for advice.

Within 10 business days of receiving your cancellation notice, the advice business must:

• confirm in writing they have received it, and
• give your super fund a copy.

Your super fund must stop deducting fees as soon as they receive your cancellation notice.

Choosing a new fund

There are some important things you need to think about before you decide to move to a new fund.

Insurance – if you have insurance in your current super fund, leaving could result in that insurance being cancelled. 

• If you have insurance that is tailored to your specific needs, you may not want to cancel it. Check if you have insurance and if you do, ask your fund if there is any option to transfer it to your new super fund. 
• If you have a standard policy, you might be able to get a better deal with another fund. Find out more about choosing insurance through your super fund. 

Before you cancel your existing insurance, make sure you are eligible for and confirm your new insurance.

Existing accounts – you may already have other super accounts. Some of the people who were switched into Shield and First Guardian kept their old super accounts because they wanted to keep their insurance. If you already have another super account, it might make sense to use that account instead of creating a new one, so you don’t pay fees on multiple accounts. You can check if you have any other super accounts through MyGov.

Performance and fees – choosing a super fund with high performance and low fees will help you save more for retirement. Unlike investments like Shield and First Guardian, all products that are created by super funds have to pass an annual performance test run by the regulator. The performance test looks at a super fund product’s investment returns and fees. Super funds have to tell their members if their products fail the test. If the product fails twice, the fund isn’t allowed to sign up new members. You can compare different MySuper products (which passed the performance test) using the ATO’s YourSuper comparison tool.

Financial advice – you don’t have to hire a financial adviser to help you choose a new fund, though there are some funds that require you to have an adviser if you want to be a member of their fund. If you do want an adviser to help you choose a new fund, we recommend choosing a new adviser who hasn’t been involved with selling Shield or First Guardian. 

Find more about how to choose a good adviser.