Financial Hardship Guide
Introduction
We understand that at times, you could be experiencing financial hardship. We also understand that financial hardship may be temporary or due to an event outside of your control for example, due to a car accident. We are committed to working with you to provide options for support and will take the time to consider your individual circumstances when considering the support we can provide and when reviewing your application for financial hardship.
Our staff have received financial hardship training including how to identify that you may need additional support and how to assess, and support you, through the financial hardship application process. Our suppliers have also undertaken financial hardship training to ensure that if you need assistance, you will be referred to us so we can support you.
We encourage you to let us know if you need any additional support, including financial hardship support, to ensure we are aware and are able to offer you assistance.
How can we support you?
Depending on your circumstances, we may do one or more of the following:
- Refer you to financial counselling services
- Implement a repayment plan
- Pause or delay any payments owing
- Reduce payments owing for a fixed period
- Deduct the excess from the claim amount we pay you
- Waive cancellation fees
- Fast track any claim you may have
This is not an exhaustive list, and we encourage you to discuss with us if there are alternative methods of financial hardship assistance that may better suit your needs.
How can you apply for support?
Please contact us on 1300 013 372. We will ask you some basic questions about your circumstances and discuss some options that are available to you. Depending on your circumstances, we may need more detailed information from you regarding your financial position e.g. income and expenses. This will give us information to establish what support we may be able to provide.
If you feel more comfortable, you can submit your Financial Hardship Application Form via email to: [email protected] or mail to PO BOX 7212, Melbourne, VIC 3004.
The Financial Hardship Application Form is attached to this Financial Hardship Guide.
2. Send supporting documentation (if required)
Depending on the amount owing and taking into account your specific circumstances, we may need to obtain supporting documentation to support your financial hardship application.
We will only ask for specific information that we need to assess your financial hardship application. We will do our best to ask for this information as soon as possible – usually we will know within your first phone call if we will need additional information.
3. Decision
In most circumstances we will be able to make a decision as to whether we are able to accept your request for financial hardship immediately.
Where we require supporting documentation, we will make a decision once we have received all relevant information. If we do not receive the supporting documentation, we will make a decision based on the information we have.
We will comply with any timeframes contained within the General Insurance Code of Practice and we will always confirm our decision in writing.
Outsourced recovery
In some circumstances, we will utilise the expertise of a recovery agent to recover monies on our behalf –particularly for third parties where we are holding you at fault for an incident with one of our insuredcustomers. We choose these recovery agents based on their knowledge and skill to recover funds and theadditional resources they can dedicate to assisting you.
All our recovery agents have received training on financial hardship; if your account has been outsourced to a recovery agent they will take your initial financial hardship application, give you information about our financial hardship process in writing and will notify us of your financial hardship.
Rest assured as soon as we, or our recovery agent, become aware of your financial hardship, they will place all recovery on hold and work with you, to find a solution that works for you.