New Website

The new Life Insurance Advocates website is up and running, so have a look today by clicking on www.lifeinsuranceadvocates.com.au. The new site allows you to access information on the types of life insurance available, the qualifications of our advisers, detailed insurance statistics, and it provides testimonials from existing clients.

If you would like to provide your own testimonial to be added onto our website, please email your feedback to testimonials@lifeinsuranceadvocates.com.au. 

Tax Rates for the 2010/11 financial year

With the start of the new financial year, it is time to start arranging your receipts and assessing if you will be getting a bill or a refund from the Australian Tax Office.  The tax rates for the 2010/2011 financial year are as follows:

Tax on Income (Excluding Medicare Levy)

$0 – $6,000              Nil
$6,001 – $37,000     15c for each $1 over $6,000
$37,001 – $80,000    $4,650 + 30c for each $1 over $37,000
$80,001 – $180,000  $17,550 + 37c for each $1 over $80,000
Over $180,000          $54,550 + 45c for each $1 over $180,000
 

Minimum Retirement Income Needs

The Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA) is the peak industry body for the superannuation sector, representing all types of superannuation funds, service providers and fund members. Figures ASFA released for the December 2010 quarter show the following income is required for a modest or a comfortable retirement:

Singles - $21,218 for a Modest Retirement and $39,393 for a Comfortable Retirement
Couples - $30,708 for a Modest Retirement and $53,879 for a Comfortable Retirement

Ensure that you remain on track to meet your retirement income needs, in the event that you, your family or your business partners are unable to work due to accident or sickness. Speak to one of our advisers today in regard to the benefits offered through income protection, life, total permanent disablement, and trauma insurance.
 

Trauma Cover (Article Provided by Zurich)

Trauma cover remains one of the least understood, least appreciated forms of life insurance, a fact borne out by industry estimates suggesting that only three per cent of Australian families own trauma protection.

And whilst the relatively higher premiums for trauma cover can obviously prove a barrier to many clients, another issue may be that the true costs of a major medical event may not be fully understood. It is quite likely that many people – when asked to consider the cost of a health trauma – tend to concentrate mainly on the immediate health costs, falsely believe that the public health system will meet most of these costs, and also tend to underestimate the time it takes to truly recover from such a condition.

The relatively obvious costs of a major medical event can include:

• Lost income
• Medical treatment
• Business interests.

Some less obvious costs can include:

• Stress/depression
• Stress for those close
• Future plans
• Lost dignity.

Research by Macmillan Cancer Support (UK) estimates that one in six cancer patients struggle to meet their rent/mortgage repayments as a direct result of the financial consequences of their illness, and sadly one in 17 actually end up losing their home altogether (one in 11 for self employed). The experience in Australia is likely to be similar, as is the experience across other health traumas such as heart attack, stroke, and accidental injury. In this context, trauma is not a ‘nice to have’ insurance but an essential part of any robust wealth protection plan.

John’s journey to cancer recovery

John was in his late forties when a persistent eye infection led to being diagnosed with Chronic Myeloid Leukemia. After four months of combined chemotherapy and immunotherapy treatments that were ineffective, John went on the waiting list for a bone marrow transplant. He had the transplant 15 months later, recuperated in hospital for 19 days and spent three months undergoing intensive outpatient treatments. After five months on anti-rejection drugs, he was considered ‘cured’.
Leading up to the transplant, John and his wife Julie decided to sell their café business, which Julie had been forced to run on her own since John became ill. After the operation, the couple lived off the business sale proceeds and what was left of John’s two year income replacement benefit, before applying for Centrelink benefits.
Two years later, the couple restarted the catering business.
During John’s recuperation, the couple spent $1200 in six months on steam cleaning the house (such was the fragile state of John’s immune system) and their weekly grocery bill went up $150 per week as they started buying fresh organic foods.
Stress caused Julie to go through premature menopause, and two years of treatment and counselling, at a cost of around $250 per month.
While John remains clear of CML, he estimates that the illness cost his business about $520,000 through the forced sale of his business and lost productivity. The emotional cost was obviously a heavy one, on Julie as well as John. This stress was compounded by the fact that their youngest son was still in high school – at a local private school - at the time John contracted his illness.
Trauma cover would have helped alleviate much of the emotional stress, by alleviating much of the financial stress. A trauma benefit would have allowed Julie to stay home to help John recover, whilst still being able to afford to employ someone to run the catering business. Day to day expenses – including the school fees for their youngest son – would no longer have been such a headache.
Did you know?
- By the time a male reaches age 85 there is a one in two chance they will have been diagnosed with cancer at some point (one in three for females). 
- Around 108,000 new cases of cancer are diagnosed each year, (more than the capacity of the MCG) and there are 109 cancer related deaths every day. 
- Between 1982 and 2007 there was a 200 per cent increase in the number of new cancer cases diagnosed (the population grew by only 30 per cent over the same period).