In the first of our Building Financial Inclusion Together blog series, we hear from Michael Hilton of Three Hands Insight on the power of lived experience and how organisations can harness it to make a difference.
Looking out at the packed hall at the Fair4All Finance Financial Inclusion conference I wondered if the lived experts might have finally met their match.
Would they be comfortable in front of a room full of people rather than online, where so much of our work now takes place?
Would they be prepared to share their deeply personal experiences with 200 strangers?
Would they hold themselves back, self-censoring what they had to say?
Forty-five minutes later and I needn’t have worried – they were brilliant.
We heard how:
Following a debt relief order in 2016, Aneita turned her life around gaining a first-class degree and a good new job. However, when it came to securing credit she continued to be judged by what her history looked like on paper, not the reality of her life and achievements now.
James, who has a disability and receives a steady income from benefits, has given up trying to get home insurance as he was consistently declined when applying without any explanation given as to why.
Edward (not his real name), who had found himself in a homeless hostel a few years ago but now had a full-time job and rented his own home, was still stuck in financial limbo due to a combination of being caught in a housing benefit trap and being unable to improve his credit score.
And the three of them left us with a number of questions which hit at the heart of the injustice of financial exclusion.
- How did I get here?
- Why aren’t I good enough?
- What options are there for me?
