Many of the core products available through mainstream life insurers have been in place for many years. Yet, ironically, the personal Life and Health insurance sector is continually in a state of change. This is due to some insurers introducing innovations that can better benefit their clients and provide greater flexibility in managing the scope, quality and cost of their insurance covers.
Life’s certainties
There are three things certain in life: death, taxes, and that your insurance premiums will increase each year. Let’s focus on the latter!
Climbing insurance premiums
While we are young(er) and have a growing family, it is important to have a comprehensive and robust protection plan that is manageable and sustainable in terms of cost. As we get older, the insurance premium will progressively increase and, over time, may reach the point at which you need to make a decision. Should we continue with the existing policy and its associated cost, reduce the sums insured, or cancel all or part of the policy outright?
What are flexible insurance covers?
It is at these decision times that it is important to have flexible insurance cover. These covers enable you to convert existing covers to other covers, which still offer the same sum insured but at a more manageable cost. For example, if the cost of Life cover becomes prohibitive, you can convert a part of it to Terminal Illness or Accidental Death cover.
Similarly, comprehensive Trauma cover, an excellent product, will get considerably more expensive later in life. It is therefore very helpful in such circumstances to have the ability to convert all or part of the comprehensive Trauma cover to Moderate Trauma and/or Severe Trauma. This enables the same aggregate sum insured to be retained but at a lower premium cost.
Work with a knowledgeable insurance specialist
It is important, when taking up personal insurance cover, that you work with an insurance specialist who is totally conversant with the range of policy wordings in the market. You need an expert who will take the time to ensure that you fully understand, right at the outset, how the policies are structured and the conversion options that may be open to you. By working with such quality advice, you can ensure that you ‘future-proof’ your policies with Flexible insurance cover. This will enable you to retain and manage the cost of your protection plan on terms that best meet your needs.
It’s what we do!
Theo Simeonidis
UProtectNZ Insurance Services