Ask Katrina...

Do you have an insurance question?
From time to time we will blog about various products and happenings within the insurance industry; if there is something that you would like to know - email me and I will respond to you personally and as appropriate with your permission will blog the scenario if its something that we should all know!

Areas of expertise include:

• Fire & General - house, contents, car, boat, bike, landlords protection



• Commercial - key person, professional liability, business insurance



• Medical Cover



• Total & Permanent Disability (known as TPD)



• Critical Illness Cover (known as Trauma)



• Mortgage Repayment Insurance



• Income Protection Insurance



• Life Insurance



• Redundancy Cover

ASK KATRINA NOW click here

General knowledge or specific to you; Katrina will come back to you with an answer!

The cost of a second opinion...

If you or a loved one was seriously ill wouldn't you like the best possible world leading medical advice?

It is our job as an adviser to seek out the best possible solutions for our clients, to be abreast of the latest innovative products in the market and to ensure we have access to them.

Great news, we now have access to the best medical minds in the world. Yes thats right, its called "Best Doctors" and simply put it you were seriously ill and had Sovereign insurance cover with this benefit you would have access to a network of over 50,000 leading specialists from 30 countries! Best Doctors provides reassurance and expert advice on the diagnosis of critical illnesses, chronic and or degenerative conditions.

Here's how it would work:

STEP 1 - You and your Insurance People adviser contact Best Doctors
STEP 2 - Medical information is gathered
STEP 3 - Clinical summary is prepared
STEP 4 - Leading expert is selected
STEP 5 - Expert analyses the information and writes a report
STEP 6 - Report is explained and sent to you and the advice is shared with your NZ Doctors and specialists.

This is just one of the benefits available and a first Australiasian wide. If you want to know more contact us.

freephone 0508 PEOPLE (0508 736 753)

EMAIL a question enquiries@insurancepeople.co.nz

Income Protection or ...

Without a good quality income protection what are you options?

Now this would have to be one of the most common mistakes that a lot of us make; may be it comes from our "she'll be right" attitude - if I am off work ACC will take care of me! Perhaps. However ACC is for injury only; not illness! And ACC itself is changing, which means uncertainty.

As it stands now, ACC will pay 80% of your income if you are off work due to an accident causing injury, but the injury has to be an acceptable injury to ACC! Also, 80% of your income is capped so no matter what you earn you can only claim up to $102,880 - and there are no guarantees for how long this payment would continue for.

ACC Claims have hit the news over the past year or so, highlighting an increase in declines where it is identified as a "degenerative" condition! So, a legitimate accidental claim is declined on the grounds that the injury was already going to happen anyway due to natural aging, previous sports strains, stresses on the body etc.

What about the Sickness Benefit? In real terms if you are working because you need all your income to pay your bills, to live and support your family then its going to be a struggle to continue if you were to rely on a sickness benefit of say $201.40 (that is, a single person over 25 years of age); or $335.66 for a married couple (with or without children).

The Sickness Benefit has its place, but if you have a choice would you really want to have to rely on it to live?

THE FACTS
5 out of every 10 men & 7 our of every 10 woman will have more than one month off work due to illness or injury before the age of 65; and nearly a third of these women will still be off work 12 months later!

Whats your preference:
(1) To hope that if you are off work it will be from injury rather than illness so you can claim from ACC?
(2) To live off a Sickness Benefit?
(3) To have every cent of cover you need and nothing you don't - providing assurance of your financial well being no matter what?


Review your situation now! We're only a phone call away - freephone 0508 PEOPLE (0508 736 753)

Written inconjunction with Sarah Williams, Adviser, Insurance People.

Fire & General Insurance

The natural disasters that New Zealand has endured in the past 6 months have certainly given us all a real big reality check! In amongst the tradgedy it sure is great to know that we do all step up and help where and when we can.

At Insurance People we are receiving calls daily from clients asking - What am I covered for? Can I please review what insurance I have? Can I get a quote?

Our team of advisers are available now to review what you have, what you are covered for and what you are not covered for. From the calls coming in we are certainly well aware that there is a real need for people to understand what insurance cover they have - sometimes, it may be that you are perfectly insured; but sadly in most instances there are 'gaps' which could have a devastating effect should you ever need to make a claim.

Here are just a couple of things to thing about;

• Do you have house and contents insurance?


• Do you have specific items listed?


• Have you held on to receipts and photos?


• Do you have waiver of premium on your insurance?


• Are you are self employed? When your financial accounts are completed is the perfect time to review your income protection.

When was the last time you checked what you were paying in premiums?

Are you paying too much?

Are you over insured?

We welcome your call - freephone 0508 PEOPLE (0508 736 753)

Protect your income : Protect your lifestyle

What is your greatest asset?

Believe it or not, the ability to earn an income is the greatest asset we have; yet still for many the option of insuring that income is put off in favour of other financial commitments that we deem more important.

The true reality of our financial well being though, is without on going income the rest of our lifestyle would just about cease to exist.

So, why is it we always choose to insure our car, our contents such as our big flat screen TV, laptops and jewellery, our boat and even our holidays but we still resist insuring the income that provides for these things?

We think the answer is to have good quality income protection insurance, whether this is an actual income protection cover or mortgage repayment insurance.

In simple terms...

Income Protection provides replacement income to you, after a set waiting period, in the event of temporarily being unable to work due to illness or injury. This is a monthly benefit paid to you until you are well enough to return to work of for a set amount of time while unable to work.

Mortgage Replacement Insurance is payable if you were deemed temporarily unable to work due to illness or injury, but instead of receiving a monthly cash payment, the benefit is decided by the mortgage payment and usually paid direct to the Bank or lender. A good quality mortgage repayment insurance will continue once the mortgage is paid off in full as well, converting to an income protection cover at that point.

Sometimes when we are not sure about something, we tend to assume - below are just a few of the misconceptions about income cover:

• Income Protection is expensive


• It won't pay out when I need it


• ACC will cover me


• I can go on a Sickness Benefit


• I won't ever need to use it


• I won't be sick for that long

One thing we can assure you of is that the market has moved substantially over the last decade to now allow us all access to smart, well structured insurance that does not have to cost an arm and a leg!

Knowledge is no weight to carry and costs you nothing to get - if you want to have the assurance that your financial well being is protected, and that of your family and your lifestyle will always be protected no matter what - call us to discuss protecting your greatest asset!

Insurance People - freephone 0508 PEOPLE (0508 736 7853)

This information blog was written by Sarah Williams, Adviser, Insurance People.