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In Australia, building, home contents, and comprehensive car insurance facilitate the accumulation of assets associated with rational, responsible citizenship while promising protection in case of events such as fire, flooding, car accident, or theft. Yet many Australians lack these insurance products, risking exposure to devastating financial losses when disaster strikes. This article compares the findings of online surveys of insured and uninsured Australians and explores the factors driving some to forego insurance coverage. Our findings show that inability to afford premiums is a major driver of noninsurance in Australia, particularly for people with low levels of disposable income and assets, or those living in areas affected by rising disaster risk. Yet the decision to forego insurance is also influenced by attitudes to financial matters. Australians who forego insurance have lower levels of trust in insurance and are less likely to consider themselves under a social obligation to be insured. However, contrary to portrayals of the uninsured as risk‐takers, the decision to forego coverage does not appear to be driven by lesser risk aversion among uninsured Australians relative to those who do purchase building, home contents, and comprehensive car insurance policies.

Building, home contents and comprehensive car insurance promise protection against loss or damage from fire, flooding, accident and theft. In Australia, young people aged 18–24 are among the groups most likely to forego these insurance products. Yet research on the reasons for this remains limited, as noninsurance among young people is attributed to their dependent or ‘fledgling’ life stage, with minimal income and assets warranting protection. In this article, we argue that noninsurance may have serious consequences for young people, particularly if they have limited savings and cannot count on financial assistance from their families. Drawing upon survey findings, we undertake an in‐depth investigation into the role of asset levels, affordability and attitudes in driving young people to forego insurance. Our findings suggest that young people are not especially predisposed to distrust insurers, to consider insurance inessential or to oppose insurance on principle. However, other attitudes—including lesser risk aversion, higher confidence in their capacity to mitigate risks and perceptions of insurance as irrelevant to their circumstances or ‘not for them’—may be more prevalent in this age group, driving them to remain uninsured even when they have assets warranting protection and sufficient income to offset affordability concerns.

With its promise of protection and peace of mind, insurance ownership is a key component of Australia’s national strategy to manage and spread costs of disaster recovery. We argue that an arduous and confusing claims process can have profound impacts on policyholders’ capacities to live safely in their homes as well as on their physical and mental health, finances, and levels of trust in insurers. Yet there has been little empirical research on policyholders’ experiences of putting this promise to the test by claiming on policies in the wake of disaster. In this article, we analyse interviews with policyholders who faced problems when making a building or home contents insurance claim following bushfire, flood, or storm. Evidence shows that aspects of claims processes place significant demands on policyholders’ financial and emotional resources, often in the aftermath of deeply traumatic and destabilising events. Our findings raise questions about the extent to which insurers’ claims handling processes and outcomes are consistent with requirements that call on insurers to respond efficiently, professionally, practically, and compassionately when and after disaster strikes.

Background: Deficits in cognition, social cognition, and motivation are significant predictors of poor functional outcomes in schizophrenia. Evidence of durable benefit following social cognitive training is limited. We previously reported the effects of 70 h of targeted cognitive training supplemented with social cognitive exercises (TCT + SCT) verses targeted cognitive training alone (TCT). Here, we report the effects six months after training. Methods: 111 participants with schizophrenia spectrum disorders were randomly assigned to TCT + SCT or TCT-only. Six months after training, thirty-four subjects (18 TCT + SCT, 16 TCT-only) were assessed on cognition, social cognition, reward processing, symptoms, and functioning. Intent to treat analyses was used to test the durability of gains, and the association of gains with improvements in functioning and reward processing were tested. Results: Both groups showed durable improvements in multiple cognitive domains, symptoms, and functional capacity. Gains in global cognition were significantly associated with gains in functional capacity. In the TCT + SCT group, participants showed durable improvements in prosody identification and reward processing, relative to the TCT-only group. Gains in reward processing in the TCT + SCT group were significantly associated with improvements in social functioning. Conclusions: Both TCT + SCT and TCT-only result in durable improvements in cognition, symptoms, and functional capacity six months post-intervention. Supplementing TCT with social cognitive training offers greater and enduring benefits in prosody identification and reward processing. These results suggest that novel cognitive training approaches that integrate social cognitive exercises may lead to greater improvements in reward processing and functioning in individuals with schizophrenia.

Background: We previously demonstrated that the high heterogeneity of response to computerized Auditory Training (AT) in psychosis can be ascribed to individual differences in sensory processing efficiency and neural plasticity. In particular, we showed that Auditory Processing Speed (APS) serves as a behavioral measure of target engagement, with faster speed predicting greater transfer effects to untrained cognitive domains. Here, we investigate whether the ability of APS to function as a proxy for target engagement is unique to AT, or if it applies to other training interventions, such as Executive Functioning Training (EFT). Additionally, we examine whether changes in APS are durable after these two forms of training. Methods: One hundred and twenty-five participants with Recent Onset Psychosis (ROP) were randomized to AT (n = 66) and EFT (n = 59), respectively. APS was captured at baseline, after treatment, and at 6-month follow-up. Mixed models repeated measures analysis with restricted maximum likelihood was used to examine whether training condition differentiated APS trajectories. Within-group correlational analyses were used to study the relationship between APS and performance improvements in each of the training exercises. Results: The two groups were matched for age, gender, education, and baseline APS. Participants showed high inter-individual variability in APS at each time point. The mixed model showed a significant effect of time (F = 5.99, p =.003) but not a significant group-by-time effect (F =.73, p =.48). This was driven by significant APS improvements AT patients after treatment (d =.75) that were maintained after 6 months (d =.63). Conversely, in EFT patients, APS improvements did not reach statistical significance after treatment (p =.33) or after 6 months (p =.24). In AT patients, baseline APS (but not APS change) highly predicted peak performance for each training exercise (all r’s >.42). Conclusions: Participant-specific speed in process

In Australia, building, home contents and comprehensive car insurance are regarded as ‘essential’ financial products. Yet the limited research on the experiences of consumers who claim against these policies highlights problems with claims handling by insurers, who are required under the General Insurance Code of Practice (2014) to decide claims in an ‘honest, fair, transparent and timely manner’. These problems are especially apparent in the aftermath of natural disasters, and include inappropriate investigation practices and delays that exacerbate financial hardship for policyholders. In this article, we analyse the findings of our survey of policyholders who recently made claims on building, home contents or comprehensive car insurance policies. We show that while most claims are accepted, excessive resolution times, poor communication and problematic investigation practices by insurers make the claims process burdensome and overwhelming for a significant minority of policyholders. Our findings indicate substantial levels of exposure to financial loss for policyholders who accept cash settlements and problems with transparency surrounding withdrawn or cancelled claims. Our findings highlight issues with compliance with the legal frameworks governing insurance claims, as well as gaps in consumer protection that should be addressed in expectation of more frequent extreme weather events in the coming decades.

The Schizophrenia International Research Society (SIRS) recently held its first North American congress, which took place in Orlando, Florida from 10-14 April 2019. The overall theme of this year's congress was United in Progress - with the aim of cultivating a collaborative effort towards advancing the field of schizophrenia research. Student travel awardees provided reports of the oral sessions and concurrent symposia that took place during the congress. A collection of these reports is summarized and presented below and highlights the main themes and topics that emerged during the congress. In summary, the congress covered a broad range of topics relevant to the field of psychiatry today.

Sensory discrimination thresholds (i.e., the briefest stimulus that can be accurately perceived) can be measured using tablet-based auditory and visual sweep paradigms. These basic sensory functions have been found to be diminished in patients with psychosis. However, the extent to which worse sensory discrimination characterizes genetic liability for psychosis, and whether it is related to clinical symptomatology and community functioning remains unknown. In the current study we compared patients with psychosis (PSY; N=76), their first-degree biological relatives (REL; N=44), and groups of healthy controls (CON; N=13 auditory and visual/N=275 auditory/N=267 visual) on measures of auditory and visual sensory discrimination, and examined relationships with a battery of symptom, cognitive, and functioning measures. Sound sweep thresholds differed among the PSY, REL, and CON groups, driven by higher thresholds in the PSY compared to CON group, with the REL group showing intermediate thresholds. Visual thresholds also differed among the three groups, driven by higher thresholds in the REL versus CON group, and no significant differences between the REL and PSY groups. Across groups and among patients, higher thresholds (poorer discrimination) for both sound and visual sweeps strongly correlated with lower global cognitive scores. We conclude that low-level auditory and visual sensory discrimination deficits in psychosis may reflect genetic liability for psychotic illness. Critically, these deficits relate to global cognitive disruptions that are a hallmark of psychotic illnesses such as schizophrenia.

Research on economic abuse has identified multiple ways in which perpetrators use debt to exercise power and control over women in violent relationships. However, there have been few attempts to evaluate consumer credit law’s role in responding to perpetrators coercing or deceiving women into taking on debt in their own names or in joint names. At present, one option for women managing such debt is to negotiate payment arrangements with creditors under the legal protections for Australians in financial hardship. In this article, the authors draw upon focus groups with consumer advocates to examine the extent to which these protections and their implementation by creditors facilitate – or undermine – women’s financial recovery. The authors argue that these protections have limited capacity to assist victims of economic abuse, in the absence of provisions for severing liability for joint debt incurred in the context of gendered dynamics of power and control.

The duty imposed on company directors under Australian law to not have the company of which they are a director trade while it is insolvent is controversial. The recent introduction of a safe harbour for directors’ personal liability for breach of the duty to prevent insolvent trading highlights the ongoing controversy surrounding this duty. This article presents the findings from a study of judgments of courts which considered the duty to prevent insolvent trading from 2004 to 2017. Directors were found liable in 72% of the judgments but the success rate differed significantly depending on who was the plaintiff. In cases brought by liquidators, the plaintiff was successful in 84% of the cases. In cases brought by creditors, the plaintiff was successful in only 42% of the cases. Almost 60% of compensation orders made against directors were for less than $500,000, but about one third of judgments involved compensation orders of over $1,000,000. The study also found there was no judgment in which a director successfully argued one of the statutory defences to an insolvent trading claim.

While the majority of those who declare bankruptcy do so voluntarily, a significant proportion are forced into bankruptcy as a result of legal action. This paper interrogates data obtained from the Australian Financial Security Authority to explore the attributes of debtors who go bankrupt involuntarily. Based on this analysis, the authors hypothesise that people who go bankrupt involuntarily are those who have more to lose by going bankrupt – such as a family home, a business venture or a managerial or professional occupation – meaning that they are more likely to resist bankruptcy until they are forced into it by their creditors.

The Australian Banking Industry Ombudsman (‘ABIO’) was the first external dispute resolution (‘EDR’) scheme set up and funded by industry members at a national level in Australia. It came into operation in 1990. The ABIO was a significant first step in the development of EDR schemes to resolve disputes between financial service providers and consumers. At one stage there were seven different industry-funded EDR schemes in existence in the financial sector. However, the existence of multiple schemes proved to be problematic. Several of the EDR schemes merged in 2008 to create the Financial Ombudsman Service (‘FOS’), and in November 2018, FOS, the Credit and Investments Ombudsman and the Superannuation Complaints Tribunal were replaced by a single body, the Australian Financial Complaints Authority. This article examines the establishment of the ABIO, outlines the expansion of industry-established EDR schemes operating in the financial sector, and then considers the arguments for the consolidation of the schemes.

The reintroduction in 1857 of imprisonment for debt in colonial Victoria flew in the face of international momentum for its abolition. In its criminalisation of debt and poverty, the Fellows Act 1857 (Vic) (21 Vict, No 29) also defied the rapid advancement of democratic and egalitarian principles in the fledgling colony. Frequently referred to as ‘gross class legislation’, the law was used unabashedly to target poor small debtors, leaving ‘mercantile men’ with significant debt untroubled by the prospect of a debtors’ gaol. Despite consistent and broad opposition to the Fellows Act 1857 (Vic) (21 Vict, No 29), its advocates resisted repeated attempts to abolish or meaningfully amend it. It is argued here that the law, and its survival against the ‘spirit of the age’, can be understood as part of a broader story of conservative resistance to the democratic innovations that threatened the power of the Victorian mercantilist establishment.

This article compares reforms to directors’ liability for insolvent trading in Singapore and in Australia. The authors analyse the law in these two countries because they are important Asia-Pacific trading partners and their laws were originally largely the same – Singapore’s law on insolvent trading reflected the law in Australia from the 1960s. However, the law in the two countries has now diverged substantially. The comparison of these two countries therefore represents an interesting case study in how countries differ in their approaches to balancing the competing interests evident in laws that impose personal liability on company directors for insolvent trading. Reform of the prohibition against insolvent trading was a focus of Australia’s insolvency law reforms in 2017 which led to the introduction of a safe harbour for directors from liability. Singapore’s omnibus insolvency law reforms of 2018-19 include amendments to update Singapore’s fraudulent and insolvent trading provisions by introducing a concept of ‘wrongful trading’. The article finds that there are some areas of convergence between these two jurisdictions when it comes to debates about such provisions, but concludes that the different contemporary legislative histories in Australia and Singapore have affected their approaches to reform. Reformers in both jurisdictions have attempted to find an appropriate balance between protecting creditors, discouraging director misconduct and encouraging entrepreneurship and innovation; however, this comparison suggests that the weight that reformers place on creditor protection compared to the concern that excessive personal liability can make directors unduly risk-averse is influenced by their existing legislative framework and experience of those laws. Although Australia has shifted away from a strict focus on creditor protection, to give directors more opportunities to engage in restructuring, Singapore’s amendments may provide a more creditor-friendly regi

According to data published by Australian Financial Security Authority (AFSA), Australian women and men offer strikingly similar reasons for their entry into bankruptcy. Yet a more detailed analysis of AFSA’s data indicates that women and men often go bankrupt in very different social and economic circumstances. This empirical study draws upon a unique dataset, obtained from AFSA, containing the de-identified records of more than 28,000 individuals. It also draws upon a series of focus groups with the staff of three nonprofit organisations, including financial counsellors and consumer solicitors. It finds that, in general, women in bankruptcy are likely to be economically disadvantaged, relative to men, as measured by income, access to wages, reliance on government benefits, real estate ownership and utilities debt. It also finds that women in bankruptcy are much more likely than men to be single with dependants and that these women experience a greater degree of gendered disadvantage than other women in the bankruptcy system.

Introduction: During vocalization, efference copy/corollary discharge mechanisms suppress the auditory cortical response to self-generated sounds as reflected in the N1 component of the auditory event-related potential (ERP). N1 suppression during talking is reduced in patients with schizophrenia. We hypothesized that these deficits would recover with auditory training that targets the speech processing system. Methods: Forty-nine individuals early in the course of a schizophrenia-spectrum illness (ESZ) were randomly assigned to 40 h of Targeted Auditory Training (TAT; n = 23) or Computer Games (CG; n = 26). The N1 ERP component was elicited during production (Talk) and playback (Listen) of vocalization. Effects of Treatment on Global Cognition, N1 suppression (Talk-Listen), N1 during Talking and Listening were assessed. Simple effects of the passage of time were also assessed in the HC after 28 weeks. Results: There was a Treatment × Time interaction revealing that N1 suppression was improved with TAT, but not with CG. TAT, but not CG, also improved Global Cognition. However, TAT and CG groups differed in their pre-treatment N1 suppression, and greater N1-suppression abnormalities were strongly associated with greater improvement in N1 suppression. Conclusions: In this sample of ESZ individuals, targeted auditory training appeared to improve the function of the efference copy/corollary discharge mechanism which tended to deteriorate with computer games. It remains to be determined if baseline N1 suppression abnormalities are necessary for TAT treatment to have a positive effect on efference copy/corollary discharge function or if improvements observed in this study represent a regression to the mean N1 suppression in ESZ.

Consumers in Australia and other developed countries are increasingly required to interact with providers of complex financial products and services, and to estimate, mitigate or absorb the risks that flow from their financial decisions. A range of debt-related problems in Australia have been attributed to low levels of financial literacy in the population. However, there has been limited research exploring the relationship between low financial literacy and the problem of financial hardship, where a consumer takes on payment obligations under a contract, but then becomes unable to meet them when they fall due. Drawing on a survey of Australians who recently experienced debt problems, this article examines the impact of financial literacy levels and levels of confidence in managing day-to-day spending on severity of financial hardship. The article also examines the impacts of financial literacy and confidence levels on the strategies employed to get by financially while in debt. The article shows that while there is no straightforward relationship between low financial literacy and severity of financial hardship, lower levels of financial literacy may reduce consumers’ ability to avoid some of the more serious consequences of default, particularly if coupled with overconfidence about their ability to manage spending.