I’m a big fan of completing something once I’ve started it. To me, starting something and not finishing it is one of the worst feelings. You see, I have an issue with discipline. When I start something, I find it quite easy to lose interest quite quickly. Once upon a time, I heard someone say that the difference between successful people and unsuccessful people is the ability to stick at something until you finish it. That stuck in my mind for years and has helped me on more occasions than one (I’m happy to report) when motivation levels were low. You can imagine my delight when I found out that I passed my Financial Protection Exam! I decided to take this exam because, as an adviser, I felt there was a gap in my knowledge regarding income protection, mortgage protection, trauma cover and so on. The thing is, most clients know that they need life insurance but are unsure (at best) about what the other types of financial protection are or who needs them. A new finder.com.au financial protection insurance study has discovered that: 62% of Australians don’t have life insurance 49% don’t have income protection insurance 51% don’t have total and permanent disability (TPD) insurance, and 54% don’t have trauma insurance
The more worrying statistic, however, is the number of people who think they do actually have some form of financial protection in place, but are unsure as to what their policy covers. In fact, according to the study, 76% of respondents said that they had life insurance or a funeral cover arrangement in place for themselves, but 24% were unsure about what it included. Additionally: 69% said they had income protection insurance in place for themselves, but 35% were unsure about what it covered; and 69% said they had TPD or critical illness cover in place for themselves, but 31% weren’t sure what was covered by this policy.
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