Why insurers must join the battle against mental illness

Mental illness is one of the leading causes of death in Australia and insurers must help to address this issue. CommInsure’s Tim Browne points to a number of topics on the agenda this year which will affect the life insurance industry.

In Tim Costello’s book Hope, he recounts a story of a documentary he had watched comparing the lives of Delhi slumdwellers who were taken to London for two weeks. 

A tour of typical city life had been planned for these tourists and they met people in their homes, local councils and sporting groups in an effort to show them what life was like in a First World Country. 

At the end of the program, these people, who barely had enough to eat, no clean water supply and inadequate medical care in their home country, had one thing to say about their English hosts. 

Their consensus was that: “they must do something to help these poor people”. 

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The Delhi slumdwellers thought their London counterparts were terribly lonely, bereft of community and that the aged were not cared for by family, instead shunted off somewhere to die. 

Reverend Costello, who has worked as the CEO of World Vision Australia since 2004, writes of a growing disconnect in modern society, and asks whether there is a trade-off where community diminishes with growing speed and affluence. 

“Poverty can be a poverty of relationships rather than things, while material achievement is a tricky benchmark for wellbeing,” he writes. 

“Naturally it is always relative, as we rarely compare ourselves to those with less. The energy and envy is always directed at those with more.  

“So the question I often ask myself is: who are the poor in this world?” 

The connection between the high prevalence of mental illness in developed countries such as Australia, and the increasingly fragmented nature of our society, cannot go unnoticed. 

While those who live in developing countries are more likely to contract diseases like malaria and dysentery, there are 350 million people worldwide suffering from depression, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

It is considered the third most important cause of disease burden worldwide in a study it carried out in 2004. 

In the study, depression was in “eighth place in low-income countries, but at first place in middle-and high-income countries”. 

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the annual cost of mental illness is $20 billion, with more than $6.3 billion spent on mental health services. 

There is an average of three-to-four days off work per month for every person experiencing depression, with six million working days lost each year and 12 million days of reduced productivity.

Alarmingly, more than half of people suffering from mental illness haven’t been diagnosed or don’t seek treatment. 

For men under 44, and for adults under the age of 31, suicide is the leading cause of death. Not road accidents. Not cancer. Not heart disease. Suicide. 

So what do we do to address this issue, which touches all of us either directly or indirectly? There are a number of topics on the agenda this year which will shine a light on the “black dog” and in turn, will affect our industry. 

Firstly, there’s the fifth edition of the introduction of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM 5) by the American Psychiatric Association, which is due for publication in May.

It will make it easier to diagnose a mental illness, and it changes the diagnostic criteria around conditions such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) – which before had to be diagnosed if someone had physically witnessed a horrific event; now a person may only have to see something on television. 

This will have ramifications on our industry as the prescription of anti-depressants may increase substantially as more and more people are diagnosed with a mental illness. 

Another hot topic is the de-stigmatisation of the issue through mainstream coverage of events such as RU OK? Day, as well as more films such as the Australian film Mental and Hollywood smash Silver Linings Playbook, which won its leading lady Jennifer Lawrence a Best Actress Oscar at this year’s Academy Awards.  

In our lives we are faced with the growing spectre of these types of illnesses and we must learn to identify and implement tools and programs to better deal with the issue.   

CommInsure recently held a series of adviser roadshows which aimed to shine a light on the “black dog” which affects so many people in our country. 

If someone were diagnosed with diabetes or heart disease, the treatment of the condition would be spoken about freely and not swept under the carpet. 

So too must be the case for mental illness.  

Why not start today? Put down the magazine or log off if you’re reading the article online. Go over to your colleague or your partner and talk about the issue.  

I welcome your thoughts and opinions on mental health and what it means for our community. Please contact me at: [email protected].

Tim Browne is general manager CommInsure, retail advice, CBA.