What is unacceptable behaviour?

Unacceptable behaviour means acting in a way that is unreasonable, regardless of the level of someone’s stress, frustration, or anger. It may involve acts, words or physical gestures that could cause another person distress or discomfort.

There are other behaviours that may be considered abusive, aggressive, or unreasonable, in line with this policy.

Whilst it is impossible to detail every instance of unacceptable behaviour, some examples are listed below;

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Aggressive or abusive behaviour

This is behaviour or language that could cause someone to feel afraid, threatened, bullied, or abused. It may include:

• physical violence or threats of physical violence
• bullying or intimidating behaviour
• derogatory remarks relating to somebody’s race, sex, gender, age or sexuality
• comments relating to disability, perceived gender, religion, belief, or any other personal characteristic
• offensive gestures
• shouting

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Inappropriate behaviour

Inappropriate behaviour causes an individual to feel uncomfortable or belittled and can include:

• insulting or degrading language
• inappropriate banter
• innuendo
• malicious allegations

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Unreasonable demands

Clients may make requests, or place demands on our services that we cannot reasonably accommodate. Depending on the nature of these they might be classed as unreasonable demands and the parameters for this will depend on the circumstances and each case should be considered on its own merit.

The behaviour of a client who persistently contacts us about the same issue can amount to an unreasonable demand. Such behaviour takes up a disproportionate amount of our time and resources and can affect our ability to provide a service to others.

An unreasonable demand can include, but isn’t limited to:

• the volume of correspondence clients generate or send, including sending the same or similar requests repeatedly
• seeking an outcome that cannot be achieved, including persistent rejection of decisions made
• repeated and frequent contact without giving enough time to respond to previous correspondence
• not following our complaints procedure
• insisting on speaking to someone who is not available or is not the appropriate person (such as the Chief Executive)
• adopting a ‘scatter gun’ approach: pursuing parallel complaints about the same issue with different members of staff

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How we manage unacceptable client behaviour

CAM will not tolerate unacceptable client behaviour. Where unacceptable behaviour is identified, depending on the circumstances, CAM can take a range of actions including:

• ending calls
• not replying to abusive emails or letters (correspondence will still be reviewed to ensure no new issues have been raised by the client)
• restricting access to Lexham Insurance Consultant Group services (CAM are part of the Lexham Group)
• referring hate crimes or incidents to the police
• referring matters to the police where other criminal offences have been threatened or committed

Before any action is taken, clients will always be warned that they are behaving in an unacceptable way so that they can change their behaviour.

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Restricting access

If a client continues to behave in an unacceptable manner, CAM can temporarily or permanently place communication restrictions on the client. These restrictions may include:

• limiting our contact to written correspondence
• limiting phone calls to specific days and/or times
• limiting our contact to a specific staff member
• limiting contact to a specific email address or telephone number
• not providing further responses to a customer’s contact if the issues have been previously considered

Such behaviour could be construed as a breach of our agreement and could lead to us terminating our agreement.

Other limitations may be considered appropriate depending on the circumstances.