It has been several months since funeral insurer Youpla Group (Youpla) – previously the Aboriginal Community Benefit Fund (ACBF) – went into liquidation, but the impacts remain alive. Save Sorry Business, a coalition of consumer advocacy groups supporting Aboriginal policyholders, has identified the five communities most affected by Youpla's collapse.
The data, as reported by The Guardian, found the five most affected communities in areas identified by the Australian Bureau of Statistics as among the most disadvantaged postcodes in Australia.
The North Queensland community of Yarrabah, a town with only 525 homes and over 30% of adults signed up to ACBF-Youpla, took the most hit from Youpla's collapse, with 786 affected policyholders. Palm Island was the second-worst affected by the insurer's collapse, with 739 people, followed by Moree in New South Wales (NSW) with 580 Aboriginal people left out of pocket, Dubbo with 504 people, and Walgett with 352 people.
Bettina Cooper, Aboriginal financial counsellor at financial rights legal centre Mob Strong Debt Help, revealed that some clients have already lost up to $30,000.
“The collapse is having a devastating cultural and financial impact on First Nations communities,” she said, as reported by The Guardian. “We have had calls that have broken our hearts. We get calls from people in palliative care, worried they're going to die soon and don't have a way to pay for their funeral. We have elderly people calling, just torn apart by thinking that they are leaving behind a generational debt. These are elders who dutifully paid in for years.”
Samantha Rudolph, Aboriginal policy officer at Consumer Action Law Centre, delved into how Youpla evaded regulators for decades despite a myriad of complaints and found that the first complaint against the insurer might have been filed as early as 1992.
The Save Sorry Business coalition has been calling for the federal government to help policyholders suffering from Youpla's collapse.
