Recovery of Assurance of Support (AoS) debts 005-03060010

An assuree may claim an income support payment when the assurer is no longer able to support them. In these cases, the National AoS team will raise an AoS debt for the assurer. The Debt Recovery team will commence recovery of the debt.

If an assuree receives an AoS recoverable payment during the AoS period the:

• accruing AoS debt will belong to the assurer
• assurer must pay the full amount back

Services Australia will contact the assurer to organise repayment of the debt.

Where there are multiple assurers each assurer is jointly and equally liable for the entire AoS debt amount (for example, if there are 2 assurers and the AoS debt amount is $10,000, both assurers are liable for the entire amount. However, they can decide the amount each assurer will repay in order to finalise the debt).

Joint assurer debts are raised as multiple liability debts with the same debt IDs.

Every 3 months, a letter will issue to the assurer/s reminding them that an AoS debt is accruing. Recovery will occur every 12 months from the date the assuree is first granted a recoverable income support payment. A Statement of Account letter will be issued every 12 months to the assurer. This will advise the debt amount they must repay. This statement will only cease once the AoS period has expired.

If an assuree accrues a debt during the AoS period:

• the debt is recoverable from the assuree only and
• normal debt processing will occur

Do not include the amount of the assuree debt in any AoS debt calculation for the assurer/s.

For example, when an assuree fails to report their earnings correctly for JSP and they accrue a debt. Any debt raised for recovery in this instance is recoverable from the assuree.

In some AoS cases, the assurer is required to lodge a security (term deposit) with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA). The CBA will then provide Services Australia with a bank guarantee so that the AoS application can be finalised.

If a debt remains unpaid by the due date, the Debt Recovery team pursue recovery for any outstanding debt. After a specific period of time, the debt will be forwarded to a debt collection agency to follow up.