What is income protection?
Income protection helps to support you and your family with lost income due to an illness or injury. This can help with covering ongoing bills and expenses.
Why do I need income protection?
Life can be unpredictable, and you want to make sure you and your family are covered if/when confronted by personal illness or injury which impacts your ability to work. Knowing you are protected can take some of the stress out of being unwell so that you can focus on your recovery.
What is the difference between ‘agreed value’ and ‘indemnity’ cover?
When you take out income protection you will need to decide if you want an Agreed Value policy or an Indemnity policy.
An Agreed Value is an amount that both you and your insurer have agreed to. This option can be beneficial for self-employed people who may have a fluctuating and/or unpredictable income.
An indemnity value will pay you a percentage of your income (usually 75%) and is usually calculated on your earnings from the previous 12 – 36 months.
How does income protection work if I am self-employed?
If you are self-employed and have a fluctuating income, you may need more certainty when it comes to income protection. You may find that an Agreed Value policy provides you with this certainty.
Most providers will need 1 – 3 years of proof of income where your best year is used for a claim. Your Moose insurance adviser will help guide you through the best cover for your income scenario.
How often will I get paid if I make a claim?
You will chose a waiting period, usually between 2 – 104 weeks, which informs your provider of when your first payment will be made.
You will then receive a monthly payment dependent on the type of cover you choose (Agreed Value, Indemnity, or Loss of Earnings).
Your payment period will depend on how long you are off work for. Most providers offer a partial payment to help transition you back into work. This can be helpful if you would like to ease back into work slowly without putting too much pressure on your health.
Your Moose insurance advisor will go through the claim process with you.
Will ACC help to cover my income if i am unable to work?
ACC will only cover up to a certain percentage of your income ONLY if you are injured in an accident. ACC will not cover the following:
- Illness, sickness, or contagious diseases, e.g., measles
- Stress, hurt feelings or other emotional issues (unless they’re linked to an injury ACC is already covering)
- Conditions related to ageing, e.g., arthritis
- Most hernias
- Injuries that happen over time, unless an activity at work is causing it
- Damage to items that don’t replace body parts. This includes hearing aids, glasses, pacemakers and gastric bands.
We can’t assume that ACC will support you if you become unwell or are injured. This is why it is important to consider income protection.
If I am injured and am eligible for ACC payments, how will this affect my income protection payments?
This will depend on the provider; however, most providers will offset your ACC costs from your income protection payment reducing some or all of what you would be eligible to claim if your ACC claim is accepted and paid out.
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Benefits of getting income protection insurance
01 Peace of mind
It is impossible to predict how life will unfold; however, income protection can offer you peace of mind to ensure that you will be appropriately cared for when it comes to claim time.
02 Financial certainty
Taking out income protection cover can relieve the financial stress associated with your living costs so you can focus on your recovery. Income protection means that you won’t have to dip into your savings to pay for living expenses and rehabilitation or medical costs.
03 Trusted Advice
Moose insurance advisers are here to make sure your insurance is fit for purpose. We tailor a plan which provides the right cover to meet your needs. This ensures that you are not under- or over-investing in your insurance policy. When it comes to claim time, we are also here to guide you through the process.
04 Flexible waiting period
Most income protection products allow you to choose a benefit waiting period of between 2 – 104 weeks. This allows you to align your own situation with your cover’s waiting period, which will be reflected in your premium price.
05 Flexible benefit period
Most income protection products allow you to choose a benefit payment period of between 2 – 5 years or to age 65 – 70. This allows you to align your own situation with your cover’s benefit period, which will be reflected in your premium price.
06 Back to work support
Most income protection products offer back to work support in the form of a partial payment. This will make up the difference of what you would have received as a full benefit if you were unable to work at all, thus supporting your transition back into work.
Why should I use an insurance adviser?
An insurance adviser will be able to run through a series of questions with you, to gather enough information to determine your financial position. This will enable us to understand what type and level of cover would be required to meet your needs, whilst balancing the affordability of your premiums.
Moose Mortgages & Insurance is accredited with a range of providers. This enables us to provide our clients with competitive pricing, and solutions to meet your needs.
- Advice recommended to suit your individual circumstances
- Access to a range of insurance providers
- Save time by letting us do the heavy lifting on your behalf
- On-going management of your insurance policy
- No fee service for our recommendation
Use our link ‘Get Started’ to create a profile, and complete a series of questions to identify what types of insurance you may be interested in. This will take only a couple minutes.
Once you’ve completed our online fact find, an adviser will be in touch to arrange a time to meet you in person, or online through video call to discuss the information disclosed. We will add any additional information that may be fit for purpose, along with a needs analysis to determine suitability of the insurance.
An adviser disclosure document will be provided outlining the adviser’s scope of service, personal details including FSP (Financial Service Provider) registration number, and how we are paid by the insurance companies. If a fee applies for our advice this would be disclosed upfront prior to you engaging our services
After we’ve gathered all the information from our meeting, we will begin the process of research and analysis. This will include comparing product provider’s pricing, product benefits and features, insurer financial ratings, and claim payout percentages for the previous year.
We will use our research findings to tailor a recommendation that is aligned to the needs based information gathered in our first meeting.
Once our recommendations are ready we will arrange a time to catch up with you to review the document either in person, or online through screenshare.
In this second meeting in person, or through screenshare, the adviser will talk you through the options in our statement of advice (recommendation) document, and answer any questions you may have.
If the advice provided requires variations the adviser will take notes, and rework the recommendations to ensure your needs are met prior to you either accepting, or declining the recommendations.
If you accept the recommendations provided by the adviser, we will lodge an application to the insurance provider on your behalf. This will require us to complete the insurer’s health questionnaire along with your personal details. This application usually takes around 20 – 30 minutes to complete.
Your completed application will be sent to underwriting for approval, where they will either issue the policy if there are no conditions, or come back to us to advise you there are conditions for us to work through prior to the insurer providing you a policy offer to accept.
Your adviser will contact you annually to review your insurance. This is to ensure that your cover remains fit for purpose through the changes in your life. We are here to ensure you are looked after for the long term.