Protecting yourself, your family & your investments are a critical part of financial planning which can often be overlooked.  The financial burden on families caused by death or disablement can be overwhelming, and having sufficient insurance protection against these events is important.

Unfortunately most people are underinsured, and therefore are at risk of severe financial hardship if they were unable to work due to sickness or injury.  Even if you think you are currently insured, quite often the level of cover is not appropriate for your situation.

What Types of Cover are Available?

·         Life Cover

Oftenknown as Death Insurance.  This type of cover provides the insured persons beneficiaries with a lump sum payment upon death.  This type of cover can also be used to pay down or clear debts and other ongoing expenses, such as the mortgage or your children’s education.  This can often be funded through your superannuation fund.

·         Total & Permanent Disability (TPD) Cover

The 2^nd form of lump sum cover; TPD provides you and your family with the necessary funds to cover medical and rehabilitation costs that are often associated with long term injuries or illnesses.  This can also be funded through your superannuation fund.

·         Trauma Cover

The 3^rd form of lump sum cover which pays out in the event you are diagnosed with a specified illness (up to 45 major illnesses) including cancer, heart attack / disease and stroke.  This payment helps fund medical / rehabilitation costs and allows you to take the necessary time off work to assist in the recovery process.

·         Income Protection Cover

Should you be off work due to injury or illness, this cover provides you with up to 100% of your income (pre-injury / illness) and can continue up to the age of 70.

We are committed to working with clients to attentively identify their specific needs and provide the most appropriate risk control and insurance management solution.  We are not aligned with any product provider and will ensure the most appropriate products for your specific needs are used.  We can source the best possible cover against loss of income, trauma, death or disablement for individuals and businesses.

We thought it may be interesting to show the amount of claims that were paid by our insurance companies last year.

Industry statistics show a total of just under $4.0 billion in claims were paid out by Life Insurance companies over 2011 helping 62,352 individuals and families.

The following table provides a breakdown of the insurance claims paid in 2012

This enormous amount of just under $4.0 billion would not have been paid if it weren’t for the work that is done with clients, by advisers, to protect family lifestyles and assets and businesses from the devastating effects of illness and injuries.

An average of $15.9 million was paid to 251 Australian every working day in 2011.

These statistics are the aggregate from the following insurance companies:

AIA, AMP, Asteron, AXA, BT, CommInsure, OnePath, Macquarie, MLC, TAL, Zurich

• Not one of these claimants expected to claim on their insurance.
• If these claimant hadn’t received $4.0 billion from insurance policies, where else would they have got that kind of money?
• This is not a one-off statistic:  over the previous 6 calendar years the total claims paid out from the above insurance companies to policyholders totals just under $19 billion.

That’s a lot of people who didn’t ever want to claim – but had to.

How glad do you think they and their dependants were, to have been wise enough to take the good advice of their adviser and plan for the unexpected?