Insurance

What is Insurance?

Insurance if a form of protection – a way to protect yourself, your family and the things you own if something goes wrong. It enables you to replace or repay your assets, whether those assets are your belongings or your capacity to earn an income.

Everybody’s circumstances are different, but insurance is important for everybody. Your need for insurance will change as you move through the different stages of life.

There are various types of personal insurance cover and options available, but we can tailor a risk protection plan to suit your needs and objectives.

What types of Insurance are there?

There are many types of insurance. Car or home/contents insurance allows you to insure your belongings. Personal insurance policies enable you to insure yourself and your ongoing wellbeing.

Personal insurance provides protection against sickness, injury and death, and includes:

Life Insurance
Total and Permanent Disability (TPD) Insurance
Trauma Insurance, and
Income Protection

While insurance does not remove the risk of something going wrong, it provides you and your family with protection and financial security if something does happen.

The amount of insurance you need is affected by:

how much you earn
your cost of living lyour assets
your liabilities
your relationship status (whether you are married, in a de-facto relationship or single), and
how many dependants you have

Insurnace as part of your superannuation

Life, TPD and income protection insurances are all offered within superannuation. If your insurance is held within superannuation, the cost of the premiums is withdrawn from your superannuation balance.

It is important to work out the best way to structure your insurance, whether inside or outside superannuation, or a combination of the two.

Benefits to having insurance in your superannuation may include:

automatic acceptance – there is generally no need to complete medical checks
cost effective cover – from the bulk discount typically available to superannuation funds
tax deductibility – some contributions to superannuation attract a tax deduction, so you may be able to pay your premiums by making tax deductible super contributions

Disadvantages of having insurance in your superannuation include:

limitations on the types of cover available lpotential delays in the payment of benefits in the event of death, and
high tax rates – superannuation death benefits paid to non-dependants may be taxed at up to 32%
premiums deducted from your account balance may affect your long-term retirement savings if you do not contribute more than the deducted premiums

Keep your insurance up to date

Insurance is not static, and your need for cover will change as you move through different stages in life. As part of the financial advice process, we regularly review your insurance to ensure that you are adequately protected as your circumstances change.