The Biking Broker Newsletter - 27th May 2009

Insurance? She’ll be right, mate

Poor kitty… the RSPCA says you can save around $9,00 on a $1,150 vet bill with pet insurance. As the recession begins to bite and we slash our spending, costs such as insurances seem a luxury.

Consider pet insurance. Australians spend around $4 billion a year pampering our pets, but only about 2 per cent of us insure them. If your beloved Rover gets lacerated in a fight with another dog, it might conservatively cost you around $1,150 to get him sown up. The RSPCA claims that with pet insurance, you save around $9,20.

The majority of Australians – members of the “she’ll be right” club – don’t bother with insurance. In fact, Australia is the most underinsured nation in the developed world.

Cars for many of us are our best friend, mobile home or shop front. But 84 per cent of us don’t insure them. Most of us don’t even value ourselves or our families enough to insure our income.

The decision to have insurance is really all about assessing your risks and your ability to pay if something goes wrong. With a pet, you always have the choice of putting them down if they are too badly hurt in an accident or the cost to operate on them is too prohibitive. But no so with a person.

As part of the launch of a new website setup by the Australian life insurance industry, Lifewise, one gentleman, John Maher spokes strongly for his decision to take out income protection insurance.

Mr Maher received serious neck and head injuries in a car accident in which the other driver was killed. He has been left with permanent short-term memory loss and great pain, physically and emotionally. John was a manager on more than $100,000, has a wife and four daughters. As a result of the injuries John became unemployable.

Ten years before his accident he took out income protection insurance and over those years had paid around $9,800 in premiums. During the 14 years since the accident, he has received more than $1.1 million in benefits and this is likely to continue to age 65.

“It was my greatest investment ever,” Mr Maher says. “I remember thinking at the time that nothing was likely to happen to me – but you never know what lies around the corner.”

In a recent survey, 89 per cent of Australians aged 25 to 65 said they were not likely to have an accident (making them unable to work) in the next 20 years. John would have been one of those people before his accident. But the frightening reality is that more than three in four Australians will be diagnosed with a serious illness in their working life.

However, all these statistics aside, most Australian’s won’t take out insurance as ‘she’ll be right’. Some of us might want to find a broker.

As part of my service to you, I am able to offer a selection of insurance products through quality providers which can include:

* Life Insurance
* Income Protection
* Mortgage Protection
* Car Insurance
* Building and Contents Insurance

Should you wish to discuss to these options further please contact me at any time on 0431 524 643.