Our frontline teams are trained to support you.

We can help by:

• providing financial relief options as outlined in our Financial Hardship Policy 

• offering to refer you to expert external support services
• being flexible in our approach to claims and provide additional support through the claims process 
• referring you to emergency services if there is an immediate threat of harm, as your safety is paramount.
  
  
  

We make the following commitments:

• We will always treat our customers with empathy, respect, and understanding.
• We will treat all information a customer discloses to us about domestic and family violence as sensitive and confidential.
• We will train our relevant staff on how to support customers who are affected by domestic and family violence.
• We will offer support to any TAL staff member who we are aware is affected by family violence, such as by offering to refer them to support services, additional leave, and flexible working arrangements. The same support will be offered to TAL staff who are vicariously impacted by domestic and family violence. 
• We will work with industry bodies and consumer groups to continue to refine our approach to supporting customers affected by family violence.
• We endorse the Council of Australian Life Insurers' Best Practice Guidance on considering domestic and family violence in product design and are exploring how we can implement this guidance. We are currently examining how our new product development and review processes can be updated to include an assessment of the risk of our products and services being weaponised by a perpetrator of domestic and family violence.
• We will not request evidence of an intervention order to enable access to support options available to customers affected by domestic and family violence. 

For customers experiencing domestic and family violence, we will:

• provide financial relief options to eligible customers suffering financial hardship or in urgent financial need, as outlined in our Financial Hardship Policy.
• offer to refer customers to external support services.
• look for ways that we can be flexible in our approach to assessing claims and provide additional support for claimants during the claims process, including reasonable alternative methods to substantiate claims. 
• refer them to emergency services if there is an immediate threat of harm.

Holding and changing a policy

Most life insurance policies are owned by the person whose life is insured under the policy, or by the trustee of an APRA-regulated superannuation fund. In these cases, you can make changes to your insurance by contacting your insurer or your super fund.  

However, in some cases a life insurance policy can be:

• jointly owned, such as by two people who are a couple  
• cross owned, where one person owns a policy over the life of another person (such as their partner), or
• owned by the trustees of a Self-Managed Superannuation Fund (SMSF), who are often members of the same family.  

In the event of domestic or family violence, financial abuse or coercive control, you may no longer feel comfortable with this policy ownership arrangement, and may wish to change it.

If this happens to you, we encourage you to contact us. We will be able to assist you by explaining what needs to happen for the ownership of the policy to be changed, or if you decide to do so, explaining how you may apply to take out your own policy. We can also connect you with services that may be able to assist you. 

Where negotiating changes to a life insurance policy owned this way is unsuccessful, other options may still be available to you. For example, the Federal and Family Courts can make orders specifying how a life insurance policy is to be varied following the breakdown of a relationship. A family lawyer can help you to navigate this process.  

Beneficiaries and the payment of claims

A beneficiary is a person who is nominated to receive the proceeds of your life insurance policy if you pass away.

It is important to understand and regularly re-evaluate your beneficiary nominations so that they remain up to date and reflect your wishes. You should also consider this when experiencing a relationship breakdown or family and domestic violence. Find out more about how you can nominate your beneficiaries.

If you make a claim due to an illness or injury, in explaining the claims process we will cover who the claim will be paid to and any correspondence that will be issued.

Updating correspondence preferences

The safety of our customers is paramount, which is why when you correspond with us, your privacy and safety are our top priority. It is important that you keep your correspondence preferences with Insuranceline up to date and let us know if there are safer ways to communicate with you, such as: 

• which contact methods and times are safe or unsafe 
• whether it is safe to leave phone messages;
• if there is a suitable or safer day or time to talk;
• whether correspondence needs to be sent to a different address; and
• whether you’d like to nominate a support person who can communicate with us on your behalf. 

If you’re affected by domestic and family violence or financial abuse, there are people you can talk to and support services that can help. Here are some useful resources if you are experiencing domestic or family violence:

Australia-wide:

• 1800 RESPECT | 1800 737 732
• Full Stop Australia | 1800 385 578
• Safe and Equal | www.safeandequal.org.au
• National Safer in the Home | 1300 694 167 | www.salvationarmy.org.au
• eSafetyWomen  | www.esafety.gov.au/women
• Kids Helpline | 1800 55 1800 | www.kidshelp.com.au
• Men’s Referral Service | 1300 766 491 | www.ntv.org.au
• Mensline Australia | 1300 789 978 | www.mensline.org.au
• Relationships Australia | 1300 364 277 | www.relationships.com.au

The forfeiture rule is a legal principle that prevents a person who is criminally responsible for someone's death from benefiting financially from their death. This means the perpetrator won't be able to inherit the victim's estate or be paid a claim from a life insurance policy over their life. Where the forfeiture rule is applied, the Court will decide who should receive the payout instead of the perpetrator—such as other family members of the deceased person.