Each year thousands of Australians are either seriously injured or struck down with a debilitating illness. Unexpected events don’t always happen to someone else. Just ask John Maher from Bendigo.
While driving just outside Bendigo, John noticed a 4 wheel drive coming towards him. What he didn’t know was that the car was being driven by a 18 year old girl who had been driving for 24 days and had lost control of the vehicle. The car rolled and bounced in the air and landed down on his roof. The girl was killed and John was trapped in his car for 1 hr ad 40 min. John suffered damage to his frontal lobe, a broken foot and ended up with serious neck and back injuries and suffers from short term memory loss. Fortunately John took out an income protection policy 10 year earlier. After a month of waiting and doctor visits, the insurance company initiated the policy. For more than 15 years now, John has been receiving benefits from the policy which will continue to pay out until he turns 65 and increases in line with CPI.
If you suffered serious accidental injuries like John, how long could you continue to maintain mortgage payments, your children’s education expenses, and your current living expenses without adequate income protection insurance in place? For 1 month, 2 months, or 6 months? And then what would you do to provide for your family?
Don’t leave your future to chance. Most of us insure our homes and motor vehicles against total loss, but fail to recognise that without income protection insurance, an accident or serious illness could render us financially destitute in less than a year. And whilst employees have some protection with Workers compensation insurance, remember that this only covers employees for injuries caused by accidents occurring during work hours, or from illnesses that occur as a direct result of employment.
