Five Sticky Situations Insurance Could Bail You Out In

1. Being diagnosed with a chronic condition.

As described in one of our earlier posts, at the age of 21 I was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease. Luckily, my conscientious mum had organised me health insurance cover before this happened, and all of my surgery and specialist costs since then have been completely taken care of by Southern Cross. Doing some loose calculations, those costs would have been upward of $20,000 so far, with unfortunately more to come in the future. If I had waited and investigated getting insured after I was diagnosed, I would have either had to cope with a large policy loading or my pre-existing condition may have been excluded entirely. So, having insurance already, before I was diagnosed kept my premiums affordable, and spared me a debt in the tens of thousands.

2. Being disabled in an accident and being unable to work.

Some accidents or conditions can be lived with and managed, and won't affect your ability to earn a living. But many of them will, either for a finite period of time or you may be unable to return to your profession indefinitely. If you have Total Permanent Disablement Cover (which is very affordable in terms of premiums) or Income Protection, you won't have financial burdens adding to your stress during already trying times while you recover. You can focus on getting well, and your family will be secure while you do.

3. Losing Your Job/Being Made Redundant

Unfortunately, it happens everyday. People lose their jobs or are made redundant and left with a whole bunch of worries, including meeting the bills, paying the rent all while finding another job quick smart. As covered a little while back, redundancy cover is a cheaper form of income protection which can protect your income while you search for new employment after being made redundant. As long as leaving your employment wasn't voluntary on your part, you can be covered! Read More Here.

4. Having a crucial person within your business fall ill.

Some of us have more to worry about than just themselves. If you own or manage a business, you may be relying on many key people underneath you to keep your business running, keep it profitable and ensure its managed properly on a day to day basis. If one of these people, say a co-director, a production manager or a reliable member of staff suffers a serious illness, condition or injury, you could be just as stuck as if one happened to you yourself. Key Person Insurance Cover is designed for this circumstance to protect your businesses profits if one of your most crucial employees goes down. 

5. Being stuck overseas due to flight cancellations, injury or natural disasters.

Another one that happened to me recently! After American Airlines cancelled my connecting flight back to Los Angeles, I was left stranded in Pensacola, Florida with no way to make my flight back from the States to Auckland. My case was comparatively minor to cases of people in my life I've known of, but paying for the extra nights hotel, meals and transportation would still have set me back close to $1,000 without travel cover. Other's I've known have had it far worse as the Icelandic Volcano eruption a few years back grounded flights all over Europe for the better part of a week, forcing them to watch as their extra costs skyrocketed. Trust me, being overseas hoping that your plans and schedules will all fall into place seems a lot more of a stretch to me than it did before. 

Thanks for reading! Visit www.sprattfinancial.co.nz for more info.