Triple-I blog | Insurers help victims of domestic violence with financial resilience

By Loretta Worters, Vice President – ​​Media Relations, Triple-I

When you think about domestic violence, insurance is usually not the most important thing. However, financial security and access to resources can make all the difference for victims who decide to end an abusive relationship. And insurance is an important part of the financial planning that can help survivors move forward.

An often hidden form of abuse within intimate partner relationships is economic or financial abuse, a common tactic abusers use to gain power and control. The forms of financial abuse can be subtle or explicit, but generally include tactics to hide information, limit the victim’s access to assets, or reduce the accessibility of family finances. Financial abuse – along with digital, emotional, physical and sexual abuse – includes behavior that deliberately manipulates, intimidates and threatens the victim in order to entrap that person. In some cases, financial abuse continues throughout the relationship; in other cases, there is financial exploitation when the survivor is trying to leave or has left.

Research shows that financial abuse occurs in 99 percent of domestic violence cases. Surveys of survivors reflect concerns about their ability to care for themselves and their children – one of the top reasons for staying or returning from an abusive partner. As with all forms of abuse, financial abuse occurs across all socio-economic, educational, racial and ethnic groups.

Survivors who struggle to get back on their feet may also be forced to return to their abuser. That’s why it’s so important that survivors understand how insurance works and the crucial role it can play in achieving financial freedom and economic self-sufficiency.

Since 2005, the Allstate Foundation has been committed to ending domestic violence through financial empowerment by providing survivors with the education and resources needed to reach their potential and equipping youth with the information and confidence they need need to help prevent unhealthy relationships before they start. .

The Allstate Foundation offers a Moving Ahead Curriculum, a five-module program that helps prepare survivors to transition from short-term safety to long-term safety. Modules of the curriculum include: Understanding Financial Abuse; Learn financial basics; Mastering the basics of credit; Laying financial foundations and long-term planning.

In support of Domestic Violence Awareness Month, Triple-I offers financial strategies to protect victims before and after leaving an abusive relationship. They include securing financial information, knowing where the victim stands financially, building a financial safety net, making necessary changes to their insurance policies, and maintaining good credit.

The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV) reports that 10 million people are physically abused by an intimate partner each year, and 20,000 calls are made to domestic violence hotlines every day. Furthermore, 85 percent of women who leave an abusive relationship return due to their economic dependence on their abusers. Furthermore, women’s degree of economic dependence on an abuser is related to the severity of the abuse they suffer.

“Home is often a dangerous place for survivors of domestic violence, and remote work exacerbates conditions due to abusers’ ability to exert further control,” said Ruth Glenn, author, survivor and leader of the Domestic Violence Ending Movement for more than one year. 30 years. “Tactics abusers use include ruining the victim’s credit rating, as well as financial abuse,” said Glenn, president of Survivor Justice Action (SJA) and former CEO of the NCADV.

Digital abuse is another tactic used by abusers. It can take many forms, involving partners reading emails, checking texts and locations of social media posts, determining who you can connect with and talk to on social media; and continuously monitor you through social networks, spyware or tools such as location sharing; and stealing your passwords, which can also have financial consequences for you.

“One of the most powerful methods of trapping a survivor in an abusive relationship is not being able to support themselves financially,” Glenn explains. “That’s why insurance and financial education are crucial,” she said. “Education can save a life.”