"I have my own story relating to insurance (life insurance). I tried to increase my level of life insurance on my superannuation policy as security for my wife and daughter. I was happy for them to exclude mental illness as long as they covered everything else. I was honest about having a mental illness on the application to increase the life insurance cover. They refused to increase my cover. I had to take it to take to the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission and go to mediation. The process took 12 months to reach an outcome. There was definitely stigma and discrimination at play here in regard to my mental illness. This is an area that definitely needs to improve to reduce stigma and discrimination. There are only one or two travel insurance companies that will cover people if they have a mental illness and many claims for life insurance or income protection are rejected." – Matthew Dale, SANE Australia Peer Ambassador
