When I was growing up I dreamt of being an adult, going to BBQ's and telling everyone that "I sell insurance for a living", that and playing Major League baseball! At least one of these has come true!
I started the business with a focus on "financial coaching". I got some really good results for my clients however I was finding the people I work with were already smart, motivated executives who instead of spending hundreds a month on a full coaching plan, really just needed some good foundation advice. I am now recording videos and sharing this for free.
The big gap, however, was providing a backup plan if something went wrong. They had some insurance through work provided when they started and since then, both their role and personal situation had become way more complex. Sound familiar?
My role is simple. Help you work out what you HAVE, what you NEED and how to get it DONE.
By focusing on insurance advice, I am always looking for ways to make a pretty dry and boring process more streamlined and pain-free. I treat every application as if it were my own and sit on your side against the insurance company to make sure we get the best outcome every time.
I'm looking forward to helping and being a part of this community!
As I get older I start to think about insurance more. I wonder if it’s better to have a Life and Trauma policy with connected benefits, Trauma Plus, buy backs ETC or is it better to have comprehensive Health Insurance? I realise I need to decided what’s best for my and all that Jazz, but as professionals in the industry what’s been your experience with things like this and if it was you, what would you opt for ?
Thanks.
A: J.T.
I think it is most important to start with the need.
If you have the need then all the forms of cover are important.
Health Insurance - firstly, are you going to pay the extra Medicare levy if you don’t have this. If so, this becomes a no brainer.
If you need life insurance and Trauma then having them linked means you will save money.
Buy back for me is a must, everyone who I have helped with a trauma claim always wants more 😂. After suffering a claimable event, applying for cover becomes so much harder so having the choice to get some cover back is always a good option to give you the power.
Best tip, focus on the need then the strategy and pricing will take care of itself.
If you want a personal report on how much cover you need, check out this quiz I have built, will get you a personalized summary in a few minutes via Facebook messenger - https://m.me/TruePrideAU
Q: I been contracting for the past 10 years and have 3 and at times 4 regular clients. I never had income protection insurance but recently was started developing anxiety issues and currently on prescribed medication.
A few friends have suggested I should look into income protection. As I’m on medication do you think there would be an issue, thanks?
A: Hi Ben,
Firstly, what are the major concerns you are looking to protect with the income protection? The reason I ask this is as Glenn pointed out, a mental health exclusion is likely on any income protection policies and this would be consistent with the various insurance providers.
From the information you have provided, I think it would be very unlikely that an insurance company would decline the application for you.
The insurance companies will review a mental health exclusion if there has been a period of time that you are free of symptoms or treatment (medication, counselling etc). This time frame varies between insurers but is typically 2 years and in some instances 3 years.
Having the same mental health exclusion on my policy, I would argue that I am in a better position to not claim on the policy after seeking the right help than had I not sought treatment. For me, I still see value in having my income protection for everything else.
The pre-assessment that Glenn mentioned is something that your insurance adviser should be doing for you.
I would, however, suggest considering if having the mental health exclusion would be a deal breaker or not before pursuing any further.
Check out this video I have recorded about the impact of mental health on insurance applications -https://youtu.be/QjJ8WcR-2gQ
Q: Our business has been operating for 6 years and there are 3 partners. Individually we have income protection and other business insurances however one of the partners is unfortunately going through a tough time mentally and we are trying to establish if a mental illness is normally covered through income protection?
Any help would be great, thanks
A: Hi Adam,
Quick answer to your question is yes, mental health is covered via income protection and is one of the most common claims.
This is assuming that there was no exclusions for mental health applied to your biz partners policy when he took this out (ie had suffered from mental health prior to applying for the cover).
Did you/your biz partner apply for this cover via an adviser?
If so, I would suggest getting in contact with them (if you all did the policies with the same person, ie there is a relationship there with you as well) or suggesting your biz partner or their family get in touch with the adviser. They should help guide him through any claim and make this as easy as possible.
If there is no adviser involved, feel free to contact me and I would be happy to assist where I can.
Q: Hi, I am setting up an online fashion and cosmetics business and interested to get people thoughts on CRM's they use for marketing purposes – which one's work best and are cost effective, thank you ?
A: Hi Elsie, I have tried so many different CRM’s and some really good advice I have got will hopefully save you some of the headaches.
1. The best CRM is the one you use 😁 2. Some of the big ones (Salesforce etc) are like driving a Ferrari to the shops to buy milk
I recommend ActiveCampaign as an awesome low cost CRM system for marketing.
This allows you (like a lot of them) to build automated processes/flows and link them to other systems using API and tools like Zapier.
I would not have been able to grow the business without these (think birthday texts, automated “hand written” cards etc).
For about $200 per year it is really hard to beat.
I use multiple CRM’s now for different purposes (regular emails now come from ConvertKit as I think they look better).
Q: My wife and I are discussing life insurance and want to ask if the policy should be for the same value as our home or mortgage, thanks?
A: Hi Steven,
As far as life insurance amounts are concerned, if you ask 10 different advisers, you will get 10 different answers.
My belief if that you should have the minimum level of insurance at all times, therefore my full answer would depend on whether you have kids or not.
Clearing the mortgage is the first thing I suggest doing for life insurance.
Secondly, if you have kids there are a couple of extra considerations:
1. My goal is to allow the surviving spouse to become a full time parent - this requires a replacement income for the family (I work off 3 levels - standard, above average or flush).
2. Funeral/Final expenses - an amount should be added to cover this.
Once the total is worked out, further calculations needs to be done to work out the final cover levels required.
Steven, if you are considering life insurance I would suggest looking at making sure you have all your bases covered. Here is a quick video to explain the different types of cover - https://youtu.be/4JljgF-l_HI
You have a 1 in 10 chance of claiming on life insurance but some of the other covers are much more likely. Here is a video showing the likelihood of each type of cover - https://youtu.be/js2aGVaZ05A
If you would like an idea of how much I believe you should have based on your personal situation, I have built a Facebook messenger tool that will walk you through this and give you an answer in less than 5 minutes.
You can check this out here - https://m.me/TruePrideAU
Q: if i rent my house out and there is a short fall of 1000 buck a month can i claim it all back at tax time?
A: Hi Andy,
With regards to the repayments you are making at the moment, do you know if these are interest only (not paying down the debt) or principle and interest (the loan is reducing).
There will be other people way more qualified to answer this question for you than me but this info would be super helpful for you to get a more accurate answer!
Q: Should financial literacy such as savings plans, credit scoring, personal finance, credit cards, interest rates, home loans, interest calculations, buying and selling and the value of money all form an important component of the high school curriculum?
A: Hi guys,
For sure! The issue is always going to be though who is brought in to teach these messages.
The Dollarmite account would have the be one of the most successful programs for the Commonwealth Bank recruitment team.
They were, in fact, paying a commision to the schools for implementing the program as well as a commission for each contribution made ($5 upfront + 5% commission)
I wrote a post on this in which one person likened this to "putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank"(see post here - http://bit.ly/2zJER8j)
With technology the way it is now, there is SO MUCH that could be done to get the most appropriate people giving advice in their area of expertise.
There would be no benefit in old people in suits turning up to deliver the message as I would question how effective this would be. If you think back to "Happy Health Harold" something I remember from school, a similar program could be developed using the information and principles from the experts but delivered to kids in a way that makes it fun.
There is a commercial reality to all of this that seems to get in the way.
I don't love all of his advice but Scott Pape has proved that there is an appetite for the basics and kids are a captive audience when at school.
I am sure they could even find room for your Income Tax module Brendan :D
Q: Is anyone able to give advice about whether consent orders can protect me from future spousal maintenance claims by my ex-husband, or is a separate financial agreement needed for that?
A: Hi Ali,
I am not the person for this but I can recommend Shannon Hilton who has helped me and my clients on a number of occasions with similar scenarios.
Q: What is an appropriate level of insurance one should take out for themselves, including, life, Trauma & Income Insurance? Also we are a young couple with 2 kids in our early 30's is it better to take our level premiums or stepped premium options?
A: H Bernard,
First of all, congrats on the recent awards! I have seen your videos everywhere mate congrats!
I am sure you come across this scenario a lot with the people you are assisting into their dream homes.
Tip #1 - I believe you should have the MINIMUM levels of cover at all times - in your example, typically the scenario that you present (young couple, early 30's, 2 kids) would be the time you needed a backup plan the most. Good news though, it is cheaper now than it is as you get older.
Tip #2 - Plan for the long term where it makes sense - this relates to your point about stepped and level premiums. In my opinion, Life/TPD cover have a reducing need (unless you have aspirations of increasing owner-occupied debt or plans to have more kids).
Trauma Insurance - as you would have seen with people who have increased their wealth substantially, it is still unlikely that they could put their hands on $250k cash quickly without having to sell assets. It is for this reason that I recommend level premiums for trauma insurance (or at least a portion of trauma cover if there is a plan to cash up in the future).
Income Protection - this is a bit more of a case by case basis. Individual circumstances (such as business owners building recurring revenue streams, mums taking maternity leave etc) have a bearing on this but typically I like a level premium for income protection until the basics are covered with a stepped premium above the basic monthly benefit required to keep the household running.
NB: Important to check whether level premium providers offer a "True Level" benefit whereby they index the original sum insured and not the indexed premium.
If they are not indexing the original sum insured, my suggestion would be to opt out of the CPI increases as the compound interest effect can negate the benefits of the level premiums (see this example - http://bit.ly/2NSCrr9)
Tip #3 - Review and Reduce - as I mentioned earlier, my goal is to hopefully get everyone to the point that they do not need the cover anymore, this means they have substantial wealth and no longer need to rely on the insurance companies.
As you can imagine, this is a fairly rare occurrence!
For most people, they get busy and never want to revisit the insurance side of things once setup. I'd suggest checking in on the cover levels every 12 months. There are some changes that are major, and others that are more insignificant. See the attached infographic for example - http://bit.ly/2JqtEZO
Tip #4 - Make sure the levels of cover you consider have a purpose - by this I mean, clear debt, provide replacement income, etc) this way, as the inputs change, the cover levels can be reviewed easily as opposed to having a specific number for each person based on age.
This makes sure the cover levels are tailored as well. If you wanted to do a quick test, I have built a tool in Facebook Messenger that will walk you through this process in less than 2 mins and give you a personalised report on how much cover you should have.
Check it out here - https://m.me/TruePrideAU
Hope this helps mate, and congrats on all the accolades! Craig
Q: My husband and I are looking at income and trauma insurance policy through our business and would like to ask about trauma. Does trauma only include life threatening illness or an injury that stops you from working?
A: Hi Vicky,
Hopefully, you have this sorted out by now but thought I would throw my two cents in!
Ronald has nailed it here and perfectly answered your question.
Your question had 2 parts:
1 - Does Trauma only cover life-threatening illnesses? No, as the others have pointed out there are approximately 40 conditions that are covered. (Here is a quick list from one of the major insurance providers to give you an idea http://bit.ly/2JpK8BI).
2. Does Trauma require you to have an inability to work? No, again as Ronald pointed out one of the compelling features of Trauma insurance is the lack of requirement for a Dr to tell you that you cannot work.
As I am sure you have now seen with Income Protection policies, the waiting period has a massive impact on the premium you pay. The shorter the waiting period, the more expensive the cost.
Trauma insurance pays upon diagnosis and is one of the quickest policies to be paid out from the time that a claim is submitted. In all of the claims we have done for Trauma insurance, our average claim time is under a week for payment of trauma insurance.
NB: Point on tax deductibility - again I would echo Brendan's comments here. It is very simple when it comes to the deductibility of premiums. Income Protection = Deductible, Trauma Insurance = NOT Deductible. It is not worth playing around with this.
