{"id":75828,"date":"2025-02-20T11:27:16","date_gmt":"2025-02-20T00:27:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/?p=75828"},"modified":"2025-02-20T12:02:42","modified_gmt":"2025-02-20T01:02:42","slug":"cali-publishes-guidance-on-domestic-violence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/2025\/02\/20\/cali-publishes-guidance-on-domestic-violence\/","title":{"rendered":"CALI Publishes Guidance on Domestic Violence"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Council of Australian Life Insurers (CALI) has released its <a href=\"https:\/\/cali.org.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/CALI_guidance_note_family_violence_2_pages.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">best practice guidance on family and domestic violence<\/a> for insurers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPeople often contact life insurance companies during the most difficult moments in their lives. For those who have suffered domestic or financial abuse, just making that first call can be overwhelming,\u201d says CALI CEO <strong>Christine Cupitt<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a comprehensive best practice guide, developed to ensure that, when a person who is at their most vulnerable reaches out, they will be cared for by a human being who is respectful, compassionate, and empowered to assist them in their time of need.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The industry guidance was developed in consultation with social enterprise <a href=\"https:\/\/flequity.au\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Flequity Ventures<\/a> and the <a href=\"https:\/\/icos.org.au\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Independent Collective of Survivors<\/a>, who advised on lived experiences with life insurance and financial safety by design. It also involved CALI\u2019s 20 member companies to better understand the challenges victim-survivors face with life insurance.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The recommended changes will prevent perpetrators from weaponising life insurance&#8230;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\u201cThis is the first finance sector guidance to incorporate financial safety by design and commit to considering financial abuse in product design,\u201d says <strong>Catherine Fitzpatrick<\/strong>, social entrepreneur and Director, Flequity Ventures and Adjunct Associate Professor UNSW School of Social Sciences.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe recommended changes will prevent perpetrators from weaponising life insurance as a tactic of coercive control and provide additional protection and support to victim-survivors.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>CALI hopes its best practice guidance will help life insurers identify family and domestic violence situations, such as financial abuse, and respond sensitively to their customers\u2019 needs.<\/p>\n<p>Key initiatives of the best practice guidance:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Addressing financial abuse and coercive control by building flexibility into product design. This includes making sure the victim-survivor whose life is insured is informed of changes, like when a policy-owner cancels or starts a policy\n<p><figure id=\"attachment_75831\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-75831\" style=\"width: 200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cali.org.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/CALI_guidance_note_family_violence_2_pages.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-75831 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/files\/2025\/02\/BerstPractoce-DomesticViolence.png\" alt=\"The Council of Australian Life Insurers (CALI) has released a new Best practice guidance on family and domestic violence \" width=\"200\" height=\"246\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-75831\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Download the full report.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li>\n<li>Simplifying policy changes for victim-survivors by helping them navigate the legal requirements to separate or change a policy<\/li>\n<li>Enhancing privacy and confidentiality with additional security measures, such as preferred contact methods and times for victim-survivors and flags in systems<\/li>\n<li>Simplifying the application process by providing a guide to help victim-survivors understand application wording and, where possible, applying previous underwriting assessments for a new policy<\/li>\n<li>Handling queries and claims sensitively by minimising the need for victim-survivors retelling their story and adopting flexible, supportive measures for their claims<\/li>\n<li>Considering the forfeiture rule when reviewing claims made by perpetrators of domestic and family violence and consider paying any benefits to the Court<\/li>\n<li>Providing access to designated staff who are trained to identify customers under extreme stress because of family and domestic violence, and supporting staff with training to ensure their well-being and resilience<\/li>\n<li>Providing access to additional resources such as support services, financial options, and specialist referrals, both online and in print. This information will be regularly updated and accessible on life insurers\u2019 websites and <a href=\"https:\/\/cali.org.au\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">CALI<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>See: <a href=\"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/2025\/02\/20\/victims-of-family-and-domestic-violence-deserve-support\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Victims of Family and Domestic Violence Deserve Support<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Council of Australian Life Insurers (CALI) has released its best practice guidance on family and domestic violence for insurers. \u201cPeople often contact life insurance companies during the most difficult moments in their lives. For those who have suffered domestic or financial abuse, just making that first call can be overwhelming,\u201d says CALI CEO Christine [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":75835,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[282,48,6994,6837],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-associations","category-company-news","category-education","category-soft-skills"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75828\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}