Nurse's claim denied after losing job for 'voluntary' unvaccinated status
An aged care support worker has lost her dispute after her insurer declined her loan protection repayment claim after she was fired from her work for not upholding covid vaccination requirements.
The complainant held a loan protection payment policy with Allianz for a motor vehicle loan. The policy included cover for an insured becoming “involuntarily unemployed”.
The nurse lodged a claim after she was terminated from her job on December 9 2021. She said she lost her position because public health orders required workers in aged care facilities to be vaccinated against Covid-19 or to have a valid medical exemption.
The claimant said she could not be vaccinated due to a previous adverse reaction to vaccines and had been granted an exemption from her doctor on October 1, which was later withdrawn on November 25.
Allianz declined the claim based on policy provisions relating to “voluntary unemployment” and “misconduct” leading to involuntary unemployment, although it later withdrew its reliance on “misconduct”.
The Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) considered a letter from the policyholder’s doctor that confirmed a “temporary medical contraindication” to the covid vaccine for the insured, given her previous history of anaphylaxis in response to vaccines in her childhood.
However, the ombudsman noted that the doctor rescinded the certificate and said the medical exemption “cannot be sustained”. The complainant said she had not received an exemption since, noting that she had been waiting to see an immunologist “for some months”.
The ruling said that the “practical effect” of the nurse’s choice not to be vaccinated “left her employer with no choice” but to terminate her employment in line with public health orders.
“When the complainant did actively choose not to be vaccinated (without providing a valid medical exemption as the accepted alternative), she did so knowing the consequence was that she would not be able to continue working as a care support worker in the residential aged care facility,” AFCA said.
“I acknowledge there is a distinction between a person choosing not to be vaccinated, and choosing to have their employment terminated. However, in circumstances such as this – where the latter is an inevitable and clear consequence of the former – then I consider it reasonable to conclude they effectively amount to a concurrent choice.”
The decision permitted Allianz to decline the claim but said if the insured received a valid medical exemption in the future, it should “reconsider the claim in light of new evidence”.
Click here for the ruling.
