Everyone plays a role: Suncorp’s evolving approach to supporting customers through challenging times
Life can present unexpected challenges. Sometimes our customers need a caring hand when faced with difficult personal circumstances, such as family and domestic violence, serious illness, language barriers, or advanced age, to name just a few. At Suncorp, our approach is always evolving and while there’s more to be done, one thing remains constant - everyone at Suncorp knows they have a role in ensuring that customers receive thoughtful care and fair outcomes when they need it the most.
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In FY25, Suncorp’s Customer Advocate Bernadette Norrie and her team led several initiatives focused on enhancing how we support customers facing complex personal circumstances, with a strong emphasis on care, inclusion and continuous improvement at all levels of the business.
Ms Norrie said: “Our goal is to lead with care and exceed expectations. We know we don’t always get it right, but we’re committed to learning and improving every day. Every complaint, compliment, or concern is a signal - an opportunity to improve, innovate, and build trust.
“At the end of the day, advocacy is driven by people. Our goal isn’t just to meet standards – it’s to build trust, show empathy, and make sure our people feel confident and supported in doing the right thing.”
A key milestone was the launch of a new Customer Vulnerability Framework and an updated Customer Vulnerability Standard in January 2025. The enhanced Framework is a ‘guiding star’ at Suncorp and sets clear expectations for how we support customers experiencing challenges such as financial hardship, family and domestic violence, serious illness and more.
Suncorp’s Customer Advocacy team, in collaboration with internal and external champions, rolled out a comprehensive change program to support the new framework, with highlights including:
An ‘Extra Care’ campaign to drive engagement with our people about how to better identify and respond to customers requiring extra support.
New online training for all employees.
Enhanced internal guides for navigating sensitive conversations and initiating welfare checks swiftly and safely.
New face-to-face learning sessions.
Improved reporting to better understand customer needs.
Strengthened and new partnerships with valued community organisations.
Understanding the complexities of vulnerability
At the core of our employee education initiatives is our teams’ understanding that vulnerability is a state, not a trait. Anyone can experience vulnerability in a range of guises that can be temporary, sporadic or permanent.
Over the past year, Australians have been impacted by significant increases in vulnerability, attributed largely to the rise in essential living and housing costs.
Insurance can be complex, and individual circumstances can compound the impacts of vulnerability when not handled appropriately. For example, if someone is also managing grief, experiences disability, or speaks a language other than English.
Forty per cent of Australians are experiencing some form of financial difficulty, which can sometimes lead to increased mental health challenges and family and domestic violence cases, too.
#The power of an appropriate care referral
Our customer Mark* contacted Suncorp to report that he had been in an accident while towing his boat. Both his car and the boat were damaged. During his conversation with the Motor Claims team, Mark revealed that he had been homeless on and off for the past 20 years and had been living in his boat until the accident. Now, with his boat in need of repairs, he was sleeping in his car.
Understanding the urgency of his situation, the Motor Claims team immediately connected Mark with one of our care specialists, Oliver. As they spoke, Oliver learned that Mark was living on a disability pension and faced several health challenges, including diabetes and kidney issues. Mark also mentioned that he hadn’t eaten that day, as he was waiting for his pension payment to be deposited.
Oliver responded to Mark while reviewing his claim and offered a food voucher for Mark and introduced him to CareRing, one of Suncorp’s community partners. With Mark’s permission, CareRing organised regular food parcels and connected him with a financial counsellor to help him develop a financial plan and regain stability.
Enhancing company-wide awareness with improved learning and training opportunities
To help our people deepen their understanding of how to support customers, we’ve updated and enhanced Suncorp’s core learning module ‘Customer Vulnerability – Everyone plays a role.’ The mandatory training supports our people in understanding and fulfilling their role to promote financial inclusion – whether they are talking to our customers directly or designing the products, processes and systems that enable our business.
Our customer-facing teams are supported with additional, highly tailored training courses, both in-person and online, that have also been enhanced in 2025.
Suncorp’s Customer Advocate Bernadette Norrie said: “We focus on how we protect and support customers throughout our business, from product design to claims and beyond; this is where our core values are most impactfully demonstrated."
Suncorp Customer Advocate Bernadette Norrie
The landscape of Australian communities is continually evolving and it's essential that we stay responsive, by listening to our customers, our community partners, and developing our people across the business.
Nurturing our industry collaborations and community partnerships to better support customers
Collaboration remains central to our approach to supporting customers, and we have strengthened existing and forged new partnerships across the community sector, including Uniting’s CareRing, Thriving Communities Australia (TCA), and One Generation.
Trusted external support services like not-for-profit organisation CareRing are essential to supporting customers experiencing life challenges beyond their claim. They take referrals from Suncorp teams and then work with the customer to assess their needs.
This year, we’ve increased referrals to CareRing by 47 per cent, helping connect customers with food relief, financial counselling and other essential services.
One Generation is Australia’s first business alliance against family and domestic violence. It leverages Australian corporate leaders like Suncorp to drive business solutions at scale for customers impacted by family and domestic violence. The initiative was co-founded by TCA with support from social enterprise Flequity Ventures (Flequity). This is Suncorp’s second initiative with Flequity; it is also part of the national Respect and Protect initiative to help protect products and services from being weaponised for financial abuse.
Our Customer Advocate also plays an active role in key industry programs aimed at improving customer outcomes and has contributed to key industry and regulatory reviews.
