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Many Australians are covered by income protection insurance as part of their superannuation policies, yet many workers and business owners may not even realise this. It’s also important to note that not every super fund offers income protection insurance as standard, so you really need to check with your particular super fund to discover if income protection insurance is indeed a part of your current fund.
Aside from superannuation funds, any working adult can take out income protection insurance privately, and some people are actually covered twice: Both by their super fund as well as having a private policy.
Without any form of income protection insurance you are leaving yourself very vulnerable if any life event happens that prevents you from earning an income, such as an accident and injury or a serious illness.
How Does Income Protection Insurance Work?
The idea of income protection insurance is to provide the recipient with regular cash flow in the form of periodic payments while the person is unable to work. It’s a lot like receiving your wages, only the amounts can vary depending on your policy.
Income protection insurance is a form of back up like any other insurance policy. It offers you a safety net just in case you ever need it. Many people take out insurance policies on their cars and homes, but often neglect something even more vital as income protection insurance. While it’s fine to insure your possessions, without being able to earn an income, you won’t be able to pay for those possessions anyway, so this form of personal insurance is far more important in the overall scheme of life.
All insurance policies can vary from insurer to insurer and person to person. What your policy covers and how much you’ll receive in the event you can’t work really depends on your personal circumstances, as well as how much of a premium you are willing to spend monthly to maintain your income protection insurance policy.
One Major Downside To Insurance
Insurance is a good thing and often necessary, but there is a major downside when it comes to dealing with insurance companies. While these corporate giants are only too happy to promise you the world and take your money from you monthly, it can be a totally different story when you make a claim and want them to pay you.
They fidget and squirm and seek out any slightly plausible reason why they can’t honour the claim you make. This is why income protection insurance lawyers are so important. Without the help of a qualified and experienced lawyer on your side, you’re going up against the insurance giants all on your own, and that leaves you very vulnerable.
They’ll think they can easily fob you off with a couple of excuses and not pay up when you’re well and truly entitled to receive compensation for your inability to work. It’s why insurance companies love having pages upon pages of fine print legal speak in their policies. It gives them more ammunition while it confuses the heck out of everyday policy holders.
Fight the Good Fight – Hire a Lawyer
It’s certainly not impossible to make a successful claim on your own, but you stand a far greater chance of a positive outcome for your claim if you have a specialist law firm on your team. These firms deal with insurance companies and their representatives on a daily basis. They know the procedure and they understand the law.
Lawyers can also magically decipher all the hard to understand tech speak you’ll find in all insurance policies, and many law firms who focus on the insurance claims industry will offer you an initial consultation for no charge.
That’s right, you can talk about your case with a lawyer at no cost to you, so you’ve got nothing to lose by at least seeing what they have to say about your situation.
You’ll also find many of these law firms work on the no win no fee basis, so you pay nothing if they lose and only pay their fee once your claim is successful.