Out-of-home care and youth homelessness service providers have been unable to renew physical and sexual abuse cover since June last year, when insurers began pulling out of the market due to frequency and size of claims.
Children have often suffered poverty, homelessness, neglect and abuse before arriving in home care. When a child is removed from their family, the Minister for Family and Community Services is responsible for placing them in foster care, which in NSW is almost entirely run by non-government organisations.
“The insurance market has done its sums and made a policy call that this whole area of practice constitutes too great a risk for the sector,” he said. NSW upper house Greens MP David Shoebridge said the government needed to step in urgently to establish alternative insurance. Questions sent to the Minister for Family and Community Services Natasha-Maclaren Jones were referred to the Department of Communities and Justice.
The market failure is also being addressed by an inter-jurisdictional working group, combining all states, territories and the Commonwealth, she said.Sector advocates do not hold high hopes for the working group, which is being run out of Tasmania and may not produce an outcome for at least 12 months.