The Insurance Advice We Give

With over 30 years of experience in the insurance field, our team specialises in problem-solving to ensure your financial independence remains intact during unexpected events and especially during challenging health situations.

In partnership with professionals and your own personal insight, along with trusted Solicitors and Accountants, we can create secure financial structures around your assets, ensuring your long-term plans are safeguarded.

When facing the uncertainties of disablement due to medical conditions, your reliance on earned income can be severely threatened. Maintaining your financial independence and funding amidst health challenges is paramount for your goals and your future. Here are the key factors we focus on to establish and regain control when faced with the disablement process:

1. Swift Access to Medical Support: Private medical insurance ensures immediate access to necessary medical advice, treatment, and technology without delay, providing peace of mind during critical times.
   
   
2. Control Your Debt Arrangements: We can help you be able to continue to service your loans in the early stages of disablement, reducing them significantly if your health continues to deteriorate and finally eliminating all debts in the event of your untimely impending or actual departure. This is where monthly mortgage repayment cover fits, along with lumpsums that pay out when a critical illness/condition is diagnosed, or if your disability becomes permanent.
   
   
3. Securing Artificial Income: Your ability to access a source of income becomes invaluable when earning your own living becomes impossible. This is where income protection fits, providing a stable source of income, enabling you to support dependents, completing retirement savings, and covering daily living expenses, ensuring your long-term projects stay on track.
   
   

Navigating the disablement process can be unpredictable, and it needs a more thorough set of appropriate structures and advice than many people think. By establishing proper structures, seeking expert advice, and selecting suitable insurance options, you regain control. Once control is regained, the Consolidation Stage begins as life continues, allowing your life to be addressed, resourced and funded as it continues.

The truth is that a holistic approach to the disablement process is necessary because, in our experience, the process is never predictable and never unfolds as you might expect. With our long term structured approach and comprehensive claims management we can ensure that your debt payments are met, solvency is established and ongoing needs are provided for. This can involve a complex claims process with multiple steps, which our service helps navigate for you. We take into account every facet of your needs from the lens of experienced industry professionals and help provide you with what you actually need at claim time, with no mistaken assumptions.

We specialise in a personalized approach, tailored to your unique situation. Let's meet to assess your current situation, evaluate existing resources, and discuss tailored solutions. We can and will also review Allied Professional Advice, existing structures like wills, trusts and guardianships, ensuring you and your dependents are well-prepared for the future.

Talk to an Adviser today.

Insurance Advice and Tips

Insurance works best when it is used as the foundation for a plan that will protect a business, family or estate that is confronted by the disablement process. If you already have an insurance package (or you're looking for insurance) and you want to know whether your insurance will really be sufficient for your needs, here are the questions you should know the answers to:

1. What Will You Need The Cover For?

We recommend that you grab a pen and paper and write down what your insurance claim proceeds will need to be used for when it is paid out. If you can't do this now before tragedy strikes then you may be facing trouble later. Having this list in place can give you a reminder of where the money needs to go when it comes time to claim. With insurance, it's always better to be safe than sorry. 

2. Will You Be Able To Claim Soon Enough?
Life Insurance pays out in the event of actual or impending "medical death". However, in 94% of cases in New Zealand, deaths are due to medical conditions not accidents. 65% are these are due to degenerative medical conditions such as cancers, heart disease and strokes which can kill slowly over what may be an extended period of time. During this time, unable to work and unable to support yourself, your family or your business, you will be facing tremendous financial strain which your insurance may not cover for. Will the bank or your creditors wait until you are terminally ill before your life insurance cover pays out? This is perhaps the most crucial consideration to take into account when assessing your insurance. We can help you ensure that you are fully covered financially in the face of these worrying statistics as unfortunately, basic life cover is most of the time, simply not sufficient.

3. Is The Sum-Assured of Your Insurance Enough?
It may sound strange, but a $250,000 insurance claim may not be enough to repay a $250,000 debt. You may have additional interest payments, penalties for being in arrears and you may need to pay a Solicitor, Trustee or your Accountant to carry out these transactions for you. It is crucial that you set your sum assured at the right amount to cover your debt and provide adequately for your family and dependants should something happen to you. Take into account all factors, costs and if necessary, talk to us and we can help you find the amount you need.

4. Do You Have The Right Insurance?
If you have income protection insurance - do you have the right kind? If you have health insurance - what does your health insurance actually cover and what do you need it to? If you have permanent disability or critical illness insurance - how are these insurances structured within your overall portfolio of insurance and how will they work if something happens to you? The bottom line is, you need to figure out what risks you are most likely to face, take into account your lifestyle and your financial situation and then select the right insurance to meet your individual needs. This is why it's so important to have robust insurance advice from insurance professionals like us - we can find out what's right for you. Sometimes having the wrong kind of insurance is almost as bad as having no insurance at all.

5. Are You Making Assumptions About Your Insurance?
Making assumptions about your insurance without proper and solid research and planning is always a mistake. Even assuming that you or someone close to you will be physically, mentally and emotionally capable of applying the claim proceeds to your predetermined targets is not supported by our experience of dealing with over 200 insurance claims. Question everything, and get a second opinion from insurance professionals to make sure you've got it right.

6. What Should You Do?
We recommend that you use experienced professional advisers to not only design and review the underlying plan, but to execute it and carry out the tasks they are best suited to handle. If you don't have a plan now, prepared with clear-headed purpose, then any insurance you do have may well be insufficient or not adequately fit to your unique needs. Remember that if in doubt, you can always use our experienced professionals if you need guidance or advice - our service is completely free and no obligation, so you have nothing to lose!

Visit our official website for more information.

Contact us if you need help with your insurance.

Lack of life insurance leaves Christchurch family in dire straits.

Original Article can be found here: http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/10211442/Mums-death-leaves-siblings-struggling

A 43 year old Christchurch woman recently tragically lost her battle with a very aggressive and fast acting form of cancer. She had a house, a mortgage of $150,000 (which she falsely believed to be closer to $75,000) and two children who relied on the family home to survive. One of her children even had a child of her own, leaving two generations of dependants relying on the family home and finances and unable to support themselves.

Worst of all, she had no life insurance or mortgage protection. Upon her death, those left behind not only had to deal with the life consuming grief of losing their mother before her time but also the financial struggles of having to sell the family home, $8,500 funeral cost, outstanding bills and $7,000 credit card debt. Her siblings Kate and Bryce have set up a crowdfunding page to help them out in their desperate times which can be found at http://www.givealittle.co.nz/cause/KateandBryce (we definitely urge anyone who can to help).

Unfortunately, though it was of course not intentional on this mother's part, investing in life insurance could have averted all of the financial burden on the next generation after the tragedy occurred. We are personally extremely sad whenever we hear of a story like this, as we feel that we could have done something about it. Life insurance, especially for a mother in her early 40s in otherwise good health, doesn't have to be expensive, and this case demonstrates just how much it can help. When others rely on us, we can't just continue to assume that nothing will happen and things will work out, we need to put every safeguard in place that we are able to. It's not about money, it's about people.

Please think about helping out Kate and Bryce and if you want to see just how affordable and beneficial life insurance can be, give us a call, we can help.

Kate and Bryce's Givealittle Campaign

Spratt Financial Homepage

Insurance Mythbusters: "My sum assured need only cover my debt".

It's that time again! Time to bust (or confirm) some more myths!

When it comes time to set the sum assured (definition here) for their insurance policy, be it life cover, trauma or Total Permanent Disablement, people without advice tend to assume that as long as the sum assured covers their debt (mortgage, credit cards, car payments, medical expenses etc.) then that's enough.

For instance, someone with $200,000 left to pay on their mortgage and $20,000 left to pay on their car may decide that they only need to be insured for $220,000. After all, being insured for more means higher monthly premiums and why take on the extra cost for something that isn't necessary?

Except in most cases, it is necessary.

Make sure your insurance sum assured is calculated properly, with the aid of a qualified adviser or broker., not with the aid of an abacus!

A $220,000 debt most of the time will not be covered by a $220,000 payment, as there are other factors and expenses to consider. Legal fees, interest costs, the cost of a financial adviser, bank fees and taxes and more all may need to be taken into account. So to make sure you don't leave any debt behind to your beneficiaries, it is generally necessary for your sum assured to cover the sum total of your debt and then some. How much will depend on your unique circumstances, but if you're in doubt, ask a professional.

VERDICT: This one is definitely busted. Just calculating your sum assured to erase debt may leave more costs on yourself or your beneficiaries during stressful times when they can't afford it. Make sure that all potential costs are considered, taken into account, and if at all possible, leave yourself with room to play by expanding your sum assured as much as is possible and affordable.