Suicide: the hidden cost of a second shut down

On Friday evening, a person jumped in front of a train on the Glen Waverley line just near my home. My thoughts went to the family of the deceased, to the police and emergency service workers, and the innocent train driver.

Then I asked myself ‘why?’, and I hoped that it was not due to the second shut down that has been ordered in Greater Melbourne, and the effect that this will have on so many businesses.

This morning I had not heard from one of our team, and so I rang him to find him terribly upset that his good friend had taken his life yesterday. The person owned a restaurant and called in to see our team member on Saturday, despite the shut down. In hindsight, the man has come around to say goodbye and explain that he had to shut down his thriving restaurant, that he had absolutely no money left and could not see any light at the end of the tunnel. He left behind a wife and three young daughters.

Three messages. I know that many of us have become fatigued at being shut down, but when a few in the community do the wrong thing there are potentially huge life changing consequences for so many. We all need to do the right thing and stop the spread. Please consider the consequences before you break the rules.

Secondly, we have to be more vigilant than ever in keeping an eye on our family and friends. It is clear that depression and suicide are running on higher levels than normal now. However, you cannot blame yourself if the person keeps it to themselves, or you miss something with the benefit of hindsight.

The third message is that insurance claims are very stressful for clients and I have seen this through my whole career. For example, the survey results after the Brisbane floods, where many people rated the claim process more stressful than the flood. I know in my own street, people are really down. One old couple have been in a motel room since February – for $300 a night–, and are at breaking point due to the slowness of their house’s repair process. If they had their time over, they would have not claimed, repaired the roof themselves and avoided the subsequent water damage to the interior. Others, have seen the damage to their home go up by $40,000 to $50,000 while the insurer argues how many tiles are damaged, when if they did the whole roof it would be half the amount. As an industry, we need to carefully review our processes. Sometimes, the perceived savings of using certain panel builders, or assessors who are not qualified loss adjusters (who understand policy terms and conditions), are just not worth it.

Having a Doctor of Clinical Psychology on our team is proving a godsend.

My apologies for staring the week on such a somber note, but it is something we should not ignore.