The Value of Life Insurance Advice

Insurance advice is not easy to come by. Quality advice even more so.

Additionally, the value we attribute to advice varies. You will happily pay a lawyer to keep you out of jail, or to write a contract that saves you thousands of dollars. So, why wouldn’t you pay an insurance adviser to protect your wealth, your income, and your family’s future?

Australians who pay for personal insurance advice understand the value and importance of seeking advice from an experienced, specialist professional.

The Key Benefits of Personal Insurance Advice

Tailored, strategic advice for your specific circumstances

The are many insurance products available that can offer comprehensive solutions for your personal insurance needs. However, despite this, most Australians settle on the basic cover they have within their superannuation funds. Unfortunately, this is often vastly inadequate cover to protect them from the most common risks they face in life.

Australians are among the most underinsured people in the developed world. This is especially evident with regard to protecting income. After all, our ability to earn income is often our most valuable asset, yet all too often, this remains largely unprotected.

Far too many Australians have learned first-hand that unexpected death, serious illness or injury, can severely impact the financial wellbeing of them and their family.

Insurance literacy is one significant reason for this. Public awareness is another. And this is where a specialist insurance adviser can help.

A good insurance adviser has the expertise and experience to assess your individual needs and design a portfolio to protect you and your family.

Managing complexity

Generally, there are four types of personal insurance products that advisers use to devise a protection strategy. These are Life Cover (death cover); Total and Permanent Disability (TPD); Critical Illness/Trauma insurance; and Income Protection (IP).

In addition to these products, there are many and varied options and benefits that can be included to the policies issued. One advantage of receiving advice from an expert, is that they’re able to advise on the features and benefits that best reflect your needs and circumstances.

Without advice, policy holders can often end up paying for features and benefits they don’t need. Worse, with a lack of advice, they may miss out on an option that should have been included which is often only realised at the time of a claim.

It’s also important to know that a quality insurance adviser has the expertise to help structure an insurance portfolio appropriately. For example, if there are benefits in owning your cover through superannuation? the nomination of beneficiaries, and ways of avoiding unnecessary tax consequences.

Only through sound advice, can you be certain that the right amount of money, goes to the right people at the right time, if you were ever unfortunate enough to make a claim.

Getting the cover in place

Navigating the insurance application process can be tricky. A life insurance adviser will guide you through the process and advocate on your behalf during the underwriting process with the insurer. You need tenacity and experience in your corner when it comes to getting cover in place with the most favourable underwriting decision and pricing terms available.

Choosing Insurance for your life stage

People have different insurance needs and objectives depending on their stage of life. For example, a 26-year-old law graduate will have different needs to a partner in a law firm with a spouse, two children in private schools, and a substantial mortgage.

It’s for this reason that regularly reviewing your insurance needs is really important. This helps to ensure your cover is still relevant to your circumstances, as you move through the different stages of life.

Navigating the claims process

With the complexity of products, and a process most of us are unfamiliar with, there’s no doubting that life insurance policy holders can find the claims process difficult to navigate.

The Financial Services Council’s new Life Insurance Code of Practice (launching 1 July 2023) has been designed to help consumers feel more comfortable with the security life insurance has to offer.

With the support of a trusted adviser, a lot of this burden can be alleviated. They can help manage the claims process, so the best outcome can be reached, in the shortest amount of time.

Peace of mind

Whether you own and manage a business, have a family, or both, life is complex. Knowing that you have the right life insurance in place gives you valuable peace of mind.

By understanding the complexities of life insurance policies and processes, a life insurance adviser can provide you confidence in knowing that your financial future is protected through all of life’s stages That’s the real value of life insurance advice.

As specialists in tailored life insurance advice, Steadfast Life are here to help. To arrange an initial discussion about your insurance needs or review your existing arrangements, please get in touch at: referral@steadfastlife.com.au

About Steadfast Life:

As part of Australasia’s largest General Insurance broking network, the Steadfast Group Ltd, Steadfast Life brings a unique combination of scale, strength, and specialist expertise to our clients in partnership with brokers of the Steadfast network nationally.

At Steadfast Life, we pride ourselves on our mission of “Keeping Lives on Track” when the unexpected occurs. Facilitating more than $70 million in claims for clients (with a 98.6% claims admittance rate), the solutions and advice we provide, can ease the burden on our clients, their employees and families at a time when they need the support most. Our claims NPS score of 100 is testament to our mission of doing what we do best.