Care beyond the claim: supporting customers requiring extra care

Over the past year, many Australians have been impacted by significant increases in vulnerability, attributed largely to the rise in essential living costs. 

Forty per cent of Australians are experiencing some form of financial difficulty, which can lead to increased mental health issues, and family and domestic violence (FDV) cases, too.  

Suncorp has made positive progress in supporting customers who require extra care and recognises this remains an evolving area of focus—one that will continue to improve and mature across the business over time.

Suncorp Customer Advocate Bernadette Norrie said the organisation remains committed to learning, improving, and taking action to better support customers requiring extra care. “From listening to our customers to engaging with regulators and community advocates, our people are continually evaluating and evolving—and that’s something I'm really proud of.” 

Suncorp has a robust care and support structure in place and conducts training across the wider business  

Suncorp has specialised support teams in place across its Customer Service and Claims teams. Suncorp leaders such as Manager Kerrie and their teams play an important role in ensuring customers experiencing difficulties receive appropriate support.  

It is a collaborative team effort, delivered through an established ‘recognise, respond, refer and reinforce’ process.

If a customer is experiencing vulnerability, a Claims team member can refer the claim to a specialised team like the one Kerrie leads, who will complete a care call to introduce themselves and provide immediate support and manage the claim if needed. 

Kerrie explained the process: “When the team receives a referral, we’ll review the customer’s situation and either provide our Claims team guidance on how to manage the customer's vulnerabilities or, if necessary, transfer the management of the claim into our specialised team.

“We spend a lot of time researching external support services that we can recommend to our customers. We also work with our partners Converge and CareRing who can provide a range of support services to assist customers in need.  We can refer the customer directly to them, with the customer’s consent. 

“Key to us is making sure customers receive support from highly trained professionals such as counsellors. 

“Depending on what the customer needs are, we may manage their claim slightly differently and tailor our processes appropriately. We are very mindful of every action we take depending on what the customer is going through.”

Trusted external support services like CareRing are essential to caring for customers experiencing vulnerabilities beyond the life of the claim

Anysia and Matt are from Uniting’s CareRing referral service. Suncorp was the first Australian insurer to join forces with Uniting in 2016 through its CareRing service.  

CareRing Team Leader Anysia explained: “The CareRing program is a holistic phone-based community support program where we have case workers, financial counsellors and support workers, and intake and assessment teams.

“We take referrals from corporate partners, like Suncorp, who mainly refer people who are experiencing financial distress due to other vulnerabilities such as family violence, homelessness, insecure housing or tenancy issues. 

“We then work with the client to assess their needs, sometimes referring them to a financial counsellor, a caseworker, LegalAid, a mental health counsellor, or a family support worker.

CareRing Senior Manager Matt said the partnership with Suncorp encouraged two-way feedback.  

“We've been very impressed with how Suncorp has engaged with the vulnerability landscape and our team. They share their learnings and successes with others in the network and regularly engage with our teams for referral training, refresher training and feedback sessions, to ensure their referral processes are as effective as possible. 

“They've done a lot of deep thinking in the vulnerability space; it hasn't just been a ‘tick and flick exercise.’ 

“There is a sense of ‘this is the right thing to do'– to lead best practice within insurance with how to respond to vulnerability.”

Suncorp is continuing to strengthen its approach to supporting customers in vulnerable circumstances, with the introduction of a new Customer Vulnerability Framework and Standard planned for 2025—reinforcing its commitment to care, consistency, and continuous improvement.