If you have a claim under a retail insurance product with us and you are in a situation where you are the victim of domestic violence, please let us know so we can do all we can to assist you.
If you’re in an emergency or unsafe, please call the police on 000.
The safety of our customers and their family members affected by family violence is paramount. If you need support, please call 1800 RESPECT, a national help and support line that is available 24/7 for counselling and support services.
What is domestic and family violence
Domestic and family violence can happen to anyone. It generally involves violent, threatening or abusive behaviour enacted by a current or former family member, with the intention of coercion or control, causing fear or harm.
Domestic and family violence can include, but isn’t limited to:
- physical violence
- sexual assault
- emotional or verbal abuse
- psychological abuse or controlling behaviour
- stalking
- financial abuse, and
- abuse of older Australians
We understand that the issues of family and domestic violence are complex. Victims may struggle with immediate issues in crisis or ongoing issues in the longer term.
We recognise that everyone’s situation and needs are different, but we are committed to supporting our customers and our employees if and when they experience domestic and family violence.
The purpose of this policy
Purpose
This policy outlines our processes to help you if you are experiencing family or domestic violence. It outlines the principles and processes we adhere to in assisting you and ensures our team can provide timely and consistent assistance.
We are committed to assisting our customers who may be affected by Family Violence with sensitivity, dignity, respect and compassion. We will take into account your security and financial hardship circumstances where applicable.
What we can do to help
If you advise us that you are affected by domestic or family violence, we undertake to treat you with respect and dignity and exercise discretion and sensitivity, and make sure your safety is paramount.
We will ensure our team are appropriately trained so that we can:
- minimise the number of times that you need to disclose information about your situation
- handle your claims process with the utmost care
- prioritise your safety, by protecting sensitive, private and confidential information
- refer you to specialist services, and
- engage with you with sensitivity, dignity, respect and compassion.
Tell us about your situation if you can
If you are on a call with one of our team and you can tell us about your circumstances or concerns, please do this so we can offer support and assistance in a timely manner.
We will handle your complaint with sensitivity, flexibility and care where:
- the alleged perpetrator has caused the claim or is involved in relation to the subject matter of the complaint — for example, by damaging the property the subject of the complaint, or
- you and the alleged perpetrator are joint policyholders.
We will not require you to do either of the following (unless you are comfortable doing so):
- make direct contact with the alleged perpetrator; or
- make a police report about the alleged perpetrator
If you have a joint policy
If you hold a joint policy – i.e., someone else is named on your policy as well as you – we will:
- consider the potential risks to your personal safety and weigh up our obligations relating to joint policy holders
- ensure we’re paying the appropriate beneficiaries under a policy pertaining to the particular claim and circumstances.
Privacy
Privacy can be critical to your safety in any domestic and family violence situation.
We will handle your personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and any other applicable laws. We are committed to the security of your personal information and will engage with you to determine your preferred methods of communication.
Depending on your personal circumstances, we can:
- help keep your contact information on our systems secure and confidential
- help you manage how your personal information is shared with other parties, and
- discuss safe ways to communicate with you.
Precautions we take when communicating may include:
- finding a mutually appropriate time to talk on the phone
- assessing whether it’s safe to send text messages or leave voice messages on the phone, and
- sending information separately — if you’re a joint policy holder, we may need to send information to two different mail or email addresses.
We will not disclose your personal information to the alleged perpetrator of the Family Violence if you tell us who they are, even if they are a joint policyholder, unless we are required to do so by law. We recommend that you update any personal security codes you use to prevent the alleged perpetrator from accessing your information, especially if the codes are based on information they may be aware of.
How we handle claims
We endeavour to handle insurance claims with sensitivity, flexibility and care. If you make a claim and we’re informed that you’re affected by domestic and family violence, we train our team to:
- minimise the retelling of your situation
- not require you to make direct contact with an alleged perpetrator or notify the police about an alleged perpetrator
- ensure that anyone visiting your home or site on our behalf is trained and aware that you may be in danger
- be mindful that events that result in insurance claims can trigger violence, and
- be flexible in our approaches to accommodate your needs.
We provide appropriate training to all our Customer facing team to help them:
- understand if you may be vulnerable;
- identify, support and avoid harm to Customers affected by Family Violence;
- decide about how best, and to what extent, we can support you;
- protect private and confidential, and personal information of Customers affected by Family Violence;
- take account of your needs or vulnerability;
- engage with you with sensitivity, dignity, respect and compassion — this may include arranging additional support, for example referring you to people, or services, with specialist training and experience. We will review and update our training on a regular basis.
Looking after our team
While providing services to customers is our priority, we also recognise that our own employees can be affected by domestic and family violence. Some measures we take to protect our people include:
- encouraging employees to realise the importance of early detection of domestic and family violence issues with customers
- training employees in dealing with vulnerable customers, including domestic and family violence survivors, and
- providing family violence leave and support services to all of our employees.
We also protect the details of our employees and/or our representatives and provide further training if our employees:
- liaise with an alleged perpetrator of family violence
- know an alleged perpetrator has access to their personal contact details, and
- need to interview or investigate a customer who may be affected by domestic and family violence.
Access to other information and support
Below is a list of organisations that can help you access support and services,
- 1800 RESPECT for domestic and family violence
- Beyond Blue for mental health support
- Lifeline for crisis support, and
- Wesley Lifeforce service finder to connect to a range of local services
Definitions
- “Customer, you, your” means an individual insured, a third-party beneficiary, a potential customer, or an individual Underwriters or their representatives are seeking to recover money from.
- “Family Violence” means violent, threatening, or other behaviour by a person that coerces or controls a member of the person’s family, or causes the family member to be fearful, including by way of:
- physical violence;
- emotional abuse;
- psychological abuse;
- sexual abuse;
- financial or economic abuse; or
- damage to property.
- “We, us, our” means Lloyd’s Australia Ltd.
- Retail Insurance means a general insurance product that is provided to, or to be provided to, an individual or for use in connection with a Small Business, and is one of the following types:
- a motor vehicle insurance product (Regulation 7.1.11);
- a home building insurance product (Regulation 7.1.12);
- a home contents insurance product (Regulation 7.1.13);
- a sickness and accident insurance product (Regulation 7.1.14);
- a consumer credit insurance product (Regulation 7.1.15);
- a travel insurance product (Regulation 7.1.16); or
- a personal and domestic property insurance product (Regulation 7.1.17),
- as defined in the Corporations Act 2001 and the relevant Regulations.