About two years ago, Diane's* partner turned violent, knocking bricks out their home's facade, smashing holes in the doors, and kicking tiles off the roof.
Fearing her life, the Melbourne mother-of-two began to untangle their lives. But there was a major setback: her abusive ex-partner had cancelled their home insurance policy without her knowledge, causing her further distress.
"I had paid the premium on June 11 out of my bank account, and then a week later he called the insurance company, cancelled the policy and had a refund cheque made out to him," she said.
"Shouldn't I have been notified? I told them about the family violence and the intervention order, but they weren't sympathetic and the whole thing's been awful."
Diane's story is shared by hundreds, if not thousands, of family violence victims who have been thrown into further emotional and financial turmoil because their insurance companies failed to recognise and appropriately handle their fragile situations, advocates say.
Eight legal and consumer groups, including Consumer Action Law Centre and Financial Counselling Australia, have joined forces to urge the insurance industry to change the structure of policies and establish procedures so that it helps, rather than exacerbates the suffering of, family violence victims.
They say that abusive partners are burning down jointly owned and jointly insured houses and crashing cars, but victims aren't able to make a claim because the damage was caused by a co-insured, the policy was cancelled without their knowledge, or they "invited" the perpetrator into the home.
Denis Nelthorpe, chief executive of legal service West Justice, said under current laws, a victim can't make a claim if the damage was caused by a co-insured, but this failed to recognise modern views on domestic violence.
He said the growth of online and telephone underwriting had made it too easy for a perpetrator to change or cancel policies to disadvantage the victim.
"We're saying to the insurers that they need to have protocols in place to identify women in abusive relationships, because the impact on them is extreme, they can lose everything," he said.
"They should train their staff to recognise abuse, like we see in the banking or telecommunications industries, to appropriately deal with the cases, and even consider changing policy wordings."
One solution is for insurers to offer household insurance policies as composite ones, where each insured party can claim their share of the loss.
Another suggestion is that victims could be given the same rights as victims of natural disasters so that they can contact the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) to obtain information on their policies.
Alexandra Kelly from the Financial Rights Legal Centre said the typical insurance contract didn't address or have the flexibility to deal with family violence situations.
She said most of her clients were women, though many cases involved adult children living at home, whether they were the perpetrator or the victim.
"They are already vulnerable, and the decisions of an insurer - to not pay out in a time of need, to not recognise their situation - can tip them over the edge," she said.
"I've found some insurers do take a more generous approach and aren't necessarily harshly relying on a condition or exclusion, but there are those who won't pay out; it's so inconsistent."
In Diane's case, her insurer said the best thing it could do was to send out a new refund cheque with both her and her ex-partner's names, despite the intervention order.
"But I can't put it in my bank account because I need his signature and that won't be happening because of the violence, so now I have this cheque sitting here and I can't do anything with it," she said.
"I told them about my situation, but they're not listening."
The ICA said the issues were "multi-faceted" and required a "considered response".
"In addition to making family violence a priority issue for consideration by the current review of the General Insurance Code of Practice, the ICA is examining how other sectors are addressing these problems with a view to seeing whether similar measures could be adopted by insurers," said ICA spokesman Campbell Fuller.
Tanya Corrie, development???lead of financial???security at Good Shepherd, said this "intersection between family violence and finance" had emerged in the past few years, and that businesses had a big role to play in supporting the financial recovery of vulnerable people.
*Name has been changed
