The Personal Finance Society (PFS) has published a new good practice guide for advisers about economic abuse and life insurance.

The guide explores how advisers can help to close opportunities for abusers to exploit financial products.

The Personal Finance Society is a professional body and provides the Chartered Financial Planner designation.

One in seven women in the UK say they have experienced some form of economic abuse from a current or former partner, according to the charity Surviving Economic Abuse (SEA).

The PFS said it was prompted to produce the guide by the charity’s report on economic abuse in 2023.

The SEA report noted that life insurance products can be very difficult to separate without both parties’ consent and this can be a tool to control a victim-survivor post separation.

The PFS guide explores how best to set up a trust for life insurance to make it less likely to be used as a tool for abuse. It also offers a list of recommendations for advisers, including working closely with providers of life insurance to promote the interests of victim-survivors.

Carla Brown, President of the Personal Finance Society, said: “The aim of this good practice guide is to provide a starting point for advisers either looking to refresh their knowledge of economic abuse or to explore further how they can support clients experiencing economic abuse.

"The financial services profession has a crucial role to play in this and whilst we understand how to use financial tools to get the best for our clients, we should also be able to identify and avoid policies or products which perpetrators might use to facilitate economic abuse.”

She added that she wanted to create a space where clients know that advisers will do what they can to support them in the event of economic abuse.

The PFS is also planning to issue further guidance on other forms of abuses, such as elder abuse, in the near future.