She's On The Money - FRIDAY DRINKS: Afterpay Money and Insurance Exclusions

Episode Date: November 11, 2021

Happy Friday friends! This week V has been pretty riled up about Afterpay's new collaboration with Westpac, and we discuss Life Insurance Exclusions that shouldn't be happening.The advice shared on She’s on The Money is general in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances. She’s on The Money exists purely for educational purposes and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision. Victoria Devine is an Authorised Representative of Australia Pacific Funds Management Proprietary Limited ABN 34 132 463 257 - AFSL 339151See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

She's on the money. She's on the money. Hello and welcome to She's on the money, the podcast for millennials who want financial freedom. It won't come as a surprise to you that I'm introducing you to another one of our Friday Drinks episodes where we get to celebrate the money wins from our She's On The Money community. As Jess, George, and I know, there are so many great money wins and confessions that are shared in Jess's thread each and every single week in our Facebook group. And this week, like every other week, we have spent a very big part of our days having a chat about them all. So this week,

again. We are celebrating you and we are really excited to get into it. So Jess, what happened on Monday's episode? Monday's episode was a really tough listen, if I'm being honest. A little content warning. It covered a lot of topics. We spoke about rape, we spoke about abuse, we spoke about chronic illness. There was a lot going on in that episode, but I think the real takeaway from me was that Money Diarist obviously went through a huge amount of trauma and has experienced so much, but she has stepped beyond that. She's worked a lot on herself and her personal growth and she's thriving, may we say. Oh my gosh, she is thriving. And I think that that's the beautiful thing about that story because so many people who have chronic health

issues are really financially impacted. Like I don't want to compare situations because we should never compare our situation to money diarists because the reason money diaries exist is so that we can be inspired and listen to other people's stories and learn from them. But I also am just in awe of the fact that she's been through so much, but is killing it financially herself as well. Like what? Who is she? Where did she get her mindset? And how do we all take a leaf out of her book? Absolutely. I think as someone who's a little bit of a chronic complainer, it just put a lot of perspective on things for me. And I was like, oh my goodness, you know what? I take a lot for granted and I actually just sometimes need to maybe recenter, refocus and take a leaf out of that

diarist's book. Honestly, she was so special. We are still in contact and I actually have had some really, really beautiful messages this week from a number of people who have said, look, that episode really resonated with me. Like that was really inspirational. I've been through something similar. I've actually put our money diarist in contact with a number of our listeners because she said she was really comfortable to do that. And now they're creating this little network of support. And my heart is just so full. Like, I just feel like this is what we need to be doing for our community and supporting one another is obviously what we are all about. But, you know, for someone to come through such a traumatic and crazy situation that guys happened

within 12 months, like it's not as though this happened years and years and years ago. Like this was over the last 12 months for our money diarist to have gone, you know what, I can help people. And I remember recording with her and, you know, she's like, oh, I hope I did well with Victoria. And I was just like, girl, this is so powerful. This is so special. She's like, even if it just helps one person, like that was worth the time. And I'm like, oh, I want to be like, you are so special. So that episode is absolutely worth a listen. If you are comfortable with those topics, again, it does have a pretty serious trigger warning because when we talk about topics like rape, especially on She's On The Money, I want to be having a candid conversation. I don't want to

be skirting around these topics and, you know, tiptoeing. I want to be like, well, how did that impact you? How did that impact them? What is going on? How can we help? What does that mean? Because we can't learn unless we ask these questions. And I just, I feel like I learned so much from that episode. And I'm just so grateful that she was so willing to share that story with our community. So spesh. Agreed. And Georgia, let's segue away from that. What happened on our deep dive episode on Wednesday? So on Wednesday, it was slightly lighter content. We spoke about impulse spending. I was very angry on this episode. You were very angry. And that is, of course, because we were talking about Afterpay at the

top, who, as the majority of our listeners would know, have infiltrated the hospitality industry. so we had mixed feels about that uh hey jay rick what are your thoughts on that we we haven't heard from you uh i for for hospitality specifically i really dislike it it's hard because i i understand and there was a really significant discussion around this in the group this week um i understand that after they can be used responsibly as we know from the statistics that is unfortunately the minority. And I would classify takeout food, dining out, that is really a luxury item. It's a different story when we see, you know, we've heard from families who will have to pay items for their kids for school, or maybe they use it for their grocery spend because their

cashflow just isn't free enough. And that I fully understand and support if that's what you need to keep yourself in a positive financial position. But I feel like it's quite dangerous to encourage people to be putting extravagant dinners or drinks on the weekend because we already know it's so easy to tap and forget if you're then disassociating from that money you're spending because you're not seeing it all go immediately i think it's just quite dangerous and it encourages frivolous spending without really considering what you're doing 100 and we were also talking about like the impacts of alcohol and how that makes everything even worse like well how often do people get blind drunk you hear about it all the time and they're like a round of shots on the bar

like literally imagine you know i mean i imagine occasionally in those situations where someone's like yes i'll take that two thousand dollar bottle of champagne their car debts gets declined and it's actually a blessing in disguise if you have to pay it that barrier is not there yeah that's so true yeah scary scary stuff and i said on the episode i just feel like it's really predatory because like they know their return on investment they know what that segment means to them and how people are going to use it because we know that retailers sales have increased by 40 percent because of after pay usage which really leans into this week's episode that Georgia and I did around impulsiveness because it really enables you to actually purchase something that maybe

you weren't going to purchase because you didn't have the cash but you know if you put it on after pay. It's future me's problem. And, you know, we also touched on the marketing around that and how it just seems to be like, don't worry about the bill, put it on us. That's where I have a big problem, the marketing. And we know historically the marketing has, excuse my pun, but missed the mark from half a day. Yes, absolutely. Very, like in a really big way. And I think that it's the fact that that marketing leans into that psychological ignorance or. Yeah, absolutely. and impulsiveness. Like it is kind of ignorance because you're like, I get to keep my head stuck in the sand. Like I don't have to pull it out because I don't have to cough up that $200 for

a dress or it's now we can go out for dinner, Jess. We can have a fancy ass dinner. It's going to cost me 50 bucks on after pay today, but it's actually a $200 dinner. It seems really irresponsible to be doing that. And as you said before, it's really great to disclaimer, you know, if you're using this for cashflow purposes, great. But as discussed on the Wednesday episode, Georgia, in the last financial year after pay made 68.8 million dollars Jess from late fees from late fees not in terms of profit that was their profit just from late fees and to me it's like well clearly they're not doing enough to educate their community and I trawled through their website and there's not one thing on the website that says this is how to use this responsibly like and I

know that you know we don't have to do that and they don't have to do it because regulation it's not regulated they don't need to but like we get warnings with things like gambling we get warnings with things like alcohol because gambling if it was just you playing an online game there's no implication but they know what it means to your finances so why aren't these things regulated in the same way to say hey Jess if you want to use this like just so you know these are the implications or this is when you know you've got a problem with it because even one of the money losses listed in our thread this week, and you know, it's not one of the ones I'm about to read out, but one of the money losses this week was I keep digging myself into afterpay. Like people are doing it and

they're not meaning to, it's just impulsiveness and it's just, you know, it's there and it's usable and it's accessible. And I don't know, should we have warnings on these things? I don't know what the right way about it is, but I think if someone is making $68.8 million because people aren't paying their bills on time. I think there needs to be some level of responsibility to help educate that community. And if you do want to buy a fancy $200 dinner and you do want to break it down into easy installments, just break it into four and pop that away each payday. You can kind of preemptively afterpay if you budget for it. Yeah, exactly. And I think that, you know, we talked about it on the episode. Maybe we're just like rehashing this entire episode, George,

but Glenn James is always like, if you can't afford it because it's not in your account, you can't afford it. And I guess I'm a little bit more flexible on that. Cause I'm like, do you know what? As I've said on a very early episode, my best friend uses afterpay in a really smart way so that she can go get a whole heap of dresses and cashflow them. Or, you know, she's planned these spends and this is just her way of managing money. Cause she actually gets paid monthly, not weekly. And that's a good way of her, you know, making sure that it just doesn't like hit all at one time, because that would be too much for her. I am absolutely in agreeance that it can be used responsibly. Most of us don't though.

Speaking of money wins though, V, did you pick some out from the group this week? Oof, I did. And I started with a money loss before, but I have a few that I think will all resonate with. And one that actually specifically mentions you, Jess, but I'll say it for the last. I didn't see that one. Ah, yes. So first money win is from our new friend, Steph. She joined the group this week and she says money win deleted all my food delivery apps no app equals no temptation which is very true we had another one from lily and she says money win i got a belated pay rise at work and a heap of back pay with last week's paycheck the old me would have wasted that money on

something frivolous but instead i used it to pay off my after pay and close the account and pay off two-thirds of my credit card. If that's not impressive, I don't know what is. I've got another money win from Taylor and Taylor says, money win, I did a cotton on order online last night. I wonder if she used Afterpay. She can't have because she says, then she found out that they were having 30% off site-wide this morning. Instead of just leaving it, being frustrated with that, she contacted their customer support and they refunded her 30% of what she paid last night. Awesome. How good is that? That is an absolute money win. We had another money win from Shalini and she said, I now have $210 in Woolies rewards saved that will be available next month. So that's

a chunk of Christmas presents for her kids at Big W for free. Awesome. I feel like that's genius. The rewards cards. I was about to say quick check-in from Jessica Ricci. Where are you at with your flybys? Have you got your KitchenAid mixer yet? Not yet, but I have a lot of flybys dollars. Hang on. I'll tell you. That will be a fun update. I currently have 128,570 points, which is the equivalent of $642.85. That's good. Oh, how far have you got to go before you get your stand mixer? Do you reckon you'll get it for Christmas? I reckon I'll, I reckon I'll hit it for Christmas, which is so exciting. I know. Have you picked a color? White. Cause I'm boring. No, you're not boring. You're classic. You're a classic lady. All right. Jessica, not our Jessica.

car. Jessica has an exciting money win. She said, I landed a new job and a sweet, sweet $20,000 pay rise. But she said, money loss, my laptop cucked it and I have to get my wisdom teeth out tomorrow. But you know what? You've got an additional 20 grand of income that you can now use to work towards that. She's still winning. I've got two more for you guys. The first one is from Nicole. And I liked this one because it was a good money win, but also she's international. She's from the UK. She said, money win. I bought a blazer from the thrift store about three months ago for four pounds. And yesterday she found two pounds in the pocket. How good is that? I feel like it's like a wild card with thrifted clothes. Like you'll sometimes find something in

like a back pocket or something. And that just feels like free money. Like, did she just get free stuff in general? Like, how do you win that? Half price blazer. Half price blazer. But you didn't know it was going to be half price until like a few months later, in which case you got a refund. Is that what happened? It's like the slow burn win. And we've got the last one this week from Jacqueline and she has said, I've been trying to pull a Jessica Ricci and manifest the perfect surfboard for me to upgrade onto Marketplace after my partner talked me out of buying a brand new one. She said, unfortunately, I wasn't having any luck, couldn't manifest it, couldn't pull a jessica ricky but today she drove past a near new js board that is the perfect size

and volume for what she needed in the council cleanup oh my god amazing no cracks no dings no issues and all she's up for is a new leash and a set of fins which i don't know what those things are but essentially what she did was bag a 900 board for zero dollars she says thank you jessica ricky and thank you universe the manifestation we love to see oh my gosh she's I thought I'd get this on Marketplace. No, you got it for free from Council Cleaner. How good is that? The university won better. Oh my God. We've got a lot to talk about. So let's go to a quick break before we jump right back in. Alrighty, straight back into it, guys. We're getting into our money question for the week.

So here it is. Hey everyone. My question is about salary. So I've just been hired to do some vacation work and I've asked my new employer twice what my salary will be. and both times they replied with I'm not exactly sure I'll have to check and get back to you they still haven't told me what I'll be paid and I feel like I can't ask a third time I haven't been given a contract yet or started work yet but I have been going through lots of pre-employment assessments I'm wondering is this normal should I be worried or should I just be waiting until I get the contract to see what I'm going to be paid. Thank you. I have thoughts. Jessica Ricci, take it away. What are your thoughts? If you have had a verbal offer, you should not be

completing any additional work, be that prep for taking on the job, be that training, be that those tasks until they have given you a contract and you have signed it. That's a good point. That's a really good point. That is additional work that you're taking on under the assumption that you will be starting this job but the unfortunate fact is if you haven't signed a contract they can take that away from you and that sounds really skeptical and really horrible but until you have signed that piece of paper you don't have any level of security and I would really encourage her in this situation to reach out to them to be honest reach out a third time reach out a fifth time reach out a tenth time that is information that you are entitled to

um and another like sidestep from that is i personally would not accept a job without knowing the salary because yeah you just don't you just don't know where that's gonna go and it's really awkward for you if you've done all these tasks and you've set up and they've created an email account for you and all of that stuff is done and then they offer you a salary that's thirty thousand dollars less than what you were expecting yeah exactly and i also would call into question, if it's that hard to work that out, is that a red flag for an employer? Like, is that, is that crimson, Jess? That's a crimson flag. That's a crimson flag. Like that's, that one's bright. She's shining brightly. But for me, I'm like, well, why wouldn't they have already thought

about that? Because from the perspective of the employer, because that is me, I have already set a budget for what I'm going to pay for that role, because I've had to work out whether our business can afford to take someone on or not. And if I can, what is that bracket? And, you know, the person in HR might not have a specific, but they might say, oh, it's going to be between 60 and 65. And you go, okay, no problems. But like, what if they say that? And your expectation was 90. Like, is that something you want to pursue? Or are you putting everything on hold? Cause you've got all your eggs in one basket and then you're going to find out that's not the dream job. And you said no to another interview. Like, I don't know, that makes me feel really uncomfortable

because as much as maybe you didn't want to ask upfront, when's that going to come up and how have you gotten an offer without them saying, Hey, we want to give you the job at what rate? Cause like that's from my perspective, how that works. Like historically I've had conversations and Jess, you might be able to talk to this. When I gave you your offer, I said, I called you. It was very exciting. I think I recorded it. I think it's somewhere. It's on the business Bible if you want to go listen. But it was one of those things where I was like, Hey Jess, Oh my God, we would adore to have you here are the terms here's the pay here's the start date let me know if you're going to accept or not but i never want someone to verbally accept i'm like have a think about it

let me know and you were like um no i know which was so kind but like how are they giving you an offer if they don't even know what they're offering you like that that's really concerning george you look like you have a thought yeah so i'm gonna give you a little more context because michelle followed up with a little bit of a backstory oh great well you could have given us to that at the start george i couldn't jump in okay sorry sorry okay so she said she's got the job it's vacation work in my field of study okay the first time i asked about salary it was during the application and they said i believe it is paid the second time she asked what her hourly rate was was after they called her to tell her that she got the job and they said they didn't

know exactly red flag again crimson flags jessica like i just feel yeah is it paid or wait they're not even sure if they're paying her or not they think it's paid i don't know who she's chatting to anyway um i think michelle red flag i'd be calling it again and going hey cool like we're just gonna put everything on hold until i've got a little bit more clarity on the role like you can't be in a situation where they're like hey cool thanks for taking this vacation role we don't know if we can pay you or not yet like what yeah yeah I think my big thing would be don't feel bad in this situation got like because I know that when you're just chatting to someone you're like oh I don't want to come on too strong I don't want to be annoying don't put yourself in that box do

not gaslight yourself what you're asking for is extremely pertinent information that they should be providing you yeah and they should have already like what question for you Vicky D as an employer do you find it okay when people talk about like obviously yeah of course she's on the money guru but like talking about salary is a good thing it's really 100 100 i hope that both of you already know that because i've had salary conversations with both of you at certain times and been like cool this is this this is that like i just i'm probably a little bit more comfortable with that though than the average bear yeah i would say purely because i mean we are she's on the money and we do have those conversations and I go, okay, cool. Like, let's talk about this here

when, where, like we do reviews, we actually sit down, but that's not the structure of a lot of businesses. But at the same time, if they had worked out that they have a need, they would have said, we can either pay this role or not, not, oh, maybe it's paid. Like, why are you interviewing if you don't even have clarity on the role? And I would really argue whether you even want to work with them. Do they know what you're going to be doing? Like, are you just doing it because it's in your industry. I have done unpaid internships before. Um, and I feel like I did get a lot of value out of them, but now knowing what I know, I wouldn't accept an unpaid internship regardless of what stage in the process I'm at because an unpaid internship

shouldn't require any work. Like an internship should just be an internship where you're shadowing people and learning from them. And you know, you're not actually contributing. whereas I was I was acting as a paid employee and you should be remunerated if you're contributing to that business okay so moral of the story Michelle should ask a third time and if they're still being shady chuff them off chuff them off exactly I love that George so for this week I thought we could chat about an article that I read that I felt was very pertinent because a friend of mine went through something relating to this recently and I wanted to get your thoughts on it, guys. Oh, what is it? So there was an article that came out earlier this week and it

was talking about the fact that there have been calls recently for ASIC, which for anybody who doesn't know is the regulator of the financial industry. There's been calls for them to investigate mental health discrimination in life insurance. And this is very front of mind because we said a few weeks ago, Zella recently did all of my insurances. They did my partner's and we got a really good look at them. But something that you have to consider is when you're suffering from something, insurances don't want to cover you. So, if you had a pre-existing heart condition, it would be very difficult to get an insurer who would cover you for a heart condition because it's already there. And so, a lot of insurers have been putting in exclusions for mental health.

And the gist of the article, from what I understood, was the fact that this kind of discourages people from seeking help when they need it. And it doesn't necessarily take into account the fact that mental health is a very broad net and covers a lot of things. Someone might seek treatment for a particular problem like OCD. Or like anxiety or depression or something like that, which is what we're told to do. We are told to go and get help for these things and blah. But then these insurers are turning around and are saying, oh, you have mental health problems we're not covering you for anything which to me feels a little bit sneaky because obviously you take out insurance in the hope that nothing would happen but it's there in case

something does and i mean post covid post all of these big world changes mental health is you know something that's at the forefront for a lot of people and something that a lot of people are understandably struggling with so i thought it was really interesting um that they're looking at changing the regulations in the industry but um v i feel like you probably have a little bit more insight than little old me on that one. Oh, this topic actually really frustrates me. And it's not a new conversation for financial advisors to be having. We have been battling for years with mental health exclusions. And I guess if you backtrack a fair few years, so 30 plus years, ages ago, insurance was something that financial advisors sold. It's actually how the financial

advice industry was established, right? So if we go all the way back, and I think this is where a lot of financial advisors or we as an industry get a bit of a bad rap from is because let's be brutally honest we all started as salesmen I mean I didn't because I came to the industry much much later but if you go back to you know the 60s the 70s they were actually selling life insurance as a product and they would go door to door and go hey Jess do you want some life insurance what if you die well what will your stay-at-home wife do like how will she be supported and it was all very I guess, misogynistic, but it was also very based on the fact that they could insure for particular health conditions and mental health back then was not addressed in the same way that

it is today. So, fast forward and a lot of these policies have been structured in a way that they are mitigating their risks. So, we get insurance, we put our money in and that goes into a big pool and then these insurers are essentially saying, all right, we've worked out what the risk on this is, and that's whether someone's going to claim or not. And that means that we can keep our fees low. And we know over the last few years, fees have significantly increased because claims have increased because we are now seeing a surge of people actually seeking help because we're telling them to seek help. And, you know, George, Jess, we are all very positive advocates of being open and honest about our mental health. And when we are struggling, we believe in seeing people.

but historically that wasn't the case so we now have a whole new area that people are claiming on but insurers aren't structured to be able to deal with that and they don't know how to categorize it because unlike a broken leg where if you were a builder you go I have a broken leg I cannot go on site I cannot work they go fair call would you like your income protection you go thank you that that's really nice whereas mental health is a bit more flexible and I think that when it comes to mental health, it impacts people in different ways. Like you might have generalized anxiety, or you might have crippling anxiety that means you cannot leave the house and can't go to work. It might've been triggered. It might not have been triggered. And they just haven't worked out

how to actually manage these things. Because also, how do you measure when someone's able to go back to work on a mental health claim? Like, and I mean, I know we're talking about life insurance here, but this is where we've had a lot of animosity historically and insurers have been really hesitant to want to extend insurance to people who have mental health conditions because they're like, well, what if they claim, how do we know when they're going to go back to work? They'll say, oh, I'm just not mentally fit for it. And I guess that abuse of that system is coming into it. The fact that people can go out on mental health and say, sorry, I'm too depressed to work. And I'm not saying that that's, you know, not valid. It absolutely is

valid, but some people do take advantage of that. And they can't just trust the person who says, oh, sorry, I can't go to work for that. Like historically, there have been a lot of inquiries by insurers on people who are on income protection claims that maybe shouldn't have been on them because they're like, oh, I have a really bad back. And then they're seen down the road at mounts jumping up and down on trampolines with their kids. And they're like, you said you had a bad back. So I think it's an interesting conundrum, I suppose, for the industry to wrap their heads around. But essentially what's going on with the life insurance industry is life insurance implements blanket exclusions based on people's mental health. So a blanket exclusion

means they would say, hey, Jess, you know, using an example, I'm not saying you have this by any stretch of the imagination. Hey, Jess, you've got anxiety. Mental health exclusion. If you had PTSD, something happened to you and then you needed to stop working. Sorry, PTSD falls under mental health, you actually can't claim on that. It's not actually accounting for that specific area of your mental health, if that makes sense. Whereas it would make a lot more sense to go, okay, Jess, you suffer from anxiety, no problems. If you have to go off work because of anxiety, we can't cover that because that's a preexisting condition. But if you have PTSD and something happens, that's a different story. They're not doing that. They're just saying, if it's ever a mental health issue,

we're not covering it. And now life insurance is saying the same thing. And it's actually really, really detrimental, I suppose, to people applying for it because apparently, and like I know this to be true, but allegedly is probably the right word we should be using here. Policies for life insurance have been refused completely. They won't offer you insurance because you might have mental health issues. They might have really broad mental health exclusion. So just mental health in general, as opposed to like depression or anxiety or something else related to mental health, or they are offering really, really, really unreasonably high loadings. So, a loading is where they add a percentage onto the fee that you pay for that insurance. So, say your insurance

is $1,000 a year, they might go, okay, Jess, we see that you've got something that, you know, you're more likely to claim on. Therefore, you're more of a risk to us. So, you have to pay more in insurances. But then instead of saying, oh, it's $1,100 now, they might go $3,000 now. You go, oh, but I don't want to be underinsured. But now you're paying a massive premium for something that you shouldn't have been paying a massive premium for because, yeah. So, it's a bit of a fickle industry and I just think it's a really hard conversation to have. I absolutely agree and would also urge ASIC to review life insurance and make sure that we're all in the best possible position because it's 2021 and, you know, you get conflicting advice. You get told to insure

yourself so that you can be in the best possible position if something happens to you and look after yourself and your family but you're also told to go to mental health professionals so it's kind of like well which one is it like should I get insurance and then admit to the issues that I'm going through and get help for that or should I do something different or you know if I get help am I shooting myself in the foot for getting insurance like it's all just a bit messy and I guess that's why, you know, summing it all up, I'm such a positive advocate for getting insurance sorted while you're really young, as early as possible, because you are far less likely to have ever experienced a significant health issue, or it might just not be as big of an issue as it

will be in, you know, 30 years when you've had double knee reconstruction. Because we're put in these positions where we're told, get help, and we do get help, and then it's shot us in the foot for not getting insurance. And then you look at it and you go, hold on. So you're saying that the person who just has anxiety and didn't get help for it is going to get a better insurance policy than me. That's exactly what it is because it's been completely undiagnosed and untreated. So you could be completely mentally unstable because you're not getting treatment or not. And I guess I've had lots of conversations. I do have lots of friends who are advisors and we just think that the treatment should be implemented. So if I've got anxiety and my insurer knows that,

and they say, okay, Victoria, we see you've got anxiety and you're on a medication for that. You need to keep taking that. And if for some reason you claim, because you've stopped taking that medication or not informed us of your change situations, we couldn't cover that. You go, well, that makes more sense because if you've stopped treatment, well, maybe you should have updated the terms or that could have significant health outcomes. If you've just decided to stop taking medication against what your GP or your doctor has said. So I just think that there should be so many more facets of this conversation and what that actually means. But given we've gone through a pandemic, I'm pretty sure the statistic was that more than

a million services were processed in the four weeks leading up to April 24. And if you compare that to the same period of time the year before, that's an 18% increase in people seeking help. So we've got more people seeking help, which means there are going to be more people who are declined insurance. But the more people who are applying for insurance are putting themselves in the best possible position for our families, for our friends. And let's be really dramatic for the government. If you're in a position where you pass away yesterday, your insurance is going to care for your family so that they're not going to have to get a pension. They're not going to have to get government support they're not going to have to lean on the government so is it not in

their best interests to review this and make sure that we are able to pay our own ways you yeah i feel like surely like think about how far we've come in the last 10 years when it comes to mental health the stigmas around it we're having like the conversations we're having are much more candid these days i feel like in another 10 years surely this will be sorted because yeah it's just it's such a normalized part of our society now. Yeah. And I guess my biggest concern for this situation is that we are really promoting people to look after their mental health, but are they going to be stigmatized? Are they going to be discriminated against because now they can't access insurance? Is that what's going on here? And how do we mitigate that

and make sure that that's not happening because no one should be discriminated against getting insurance if it's actually necessary. And there are ways to, you know, work around that because it's wildly unfair to say, Hey, person who has anxiety, complete blanket mental health exclusion. Like that's just wild. That's like saying, Hey, um, person with bones in your body. If you ever break a bone, you're not covered. That's like throwing the baby out with the bath water. Like, Oh, I broke one of my arms. All right. Well, both arms are excluded. It's like, but my left arm's fine. I only broke my right arm. Yeah. But like you broke an arm at some point because you fell off the playground as a child. Like what? That makes no sense. So why would

you having anxiety get you a blanket exclusion on a policy. Like that doesn't make sense because anxiety is not depression. Depression is not PTSD. There are so many different facets of mental health and they're not being broken down and they really need to be. It'll be really interesting to watch and see if ASIC listens and takes those changes on board because I think we can all agree it's something that needs to change. Yeah. And as a financial advisor, I'm just really frustrated with it because this has been going on for years. Like it's not just life insurance. Like there are so many cases of people not being able to be covered for insurance because they've, you know, been through something or done something. And I totally get that the job of an insurer. So

when you're in an insurance company, you have what's called underwriting and underwriters, they have the job of assessing risk. So they would look at your application, Jess, and go, oh, how likely is this woman to claim on insurance? Like what, what kind of risk has she got to me? And they might go, oh, she's a clean skin. She's not going to have any issues straight through to the keeper. But then you might get someone in their 60s who's had a few heart issues, who's had a few leg issues, had a double knee reconstruction, who knows? And their application comes through and like, how likely are they to claim on insurance? And obviously they're far riskier. And there's a line with insurers where they're like, you know what, if they go across

this line, we can't insure them because it's not worth it because it's not actually about you as the individual. It's actually about the group and the lower risk the group, the less likely they are to have to pay out insurance. And for me, it's just like, there are so many more semantics nowadays, especially around mental health. And we really need to be talking about it, but we sure as hell shouldn't be discriminated against when we apply for insurance because we've disclosed what we're going through because we've actually tried to help our own situations. Like it just seems wild to me that that's the situation we're in. And that's why I'm such an advocate of getting insurance early. And if you're like, oh, but Victoria, it's thousands and thousands of dollars

to get a financial advisor to get insurance. It's like, well, no, there are actually insurance specialist financial advisors who will do it and do the advice for you for a couple of hundred dollars. Like I know my friend Phil does it for couples under $500 for a whole statement of advice. And that's fully underwritten proper insurance that you can't get through retail. like you can't just google it and sign up and get it done like he does it properly and I just I feel like not enough people know that that exists and if you want to get connected with someone like Phil or just Phil in general you can specify that he's a top bloke there's actually a form on our website so fill that in and we can get you matched up with him it doesn't cost anything to do that

except you will have to pay Phil for his services but it's one of those things where I don't think we talk about this stuff enough and Jess you and I have had this conversation before you wanted your insurance is done but you weren't even sure like am I meant to go to someone else like I know Victoria you're a holistic advisor and I was like okay this is how we're gonna do it but you just don't know what you don't know I mean you can absolutely go and do your own research but that again means that you're gonna have to go through the underwriting process and I guess my biggest word of warning is if you're getting insurance from somebody who has done an ad at midnight and you just call up and only takes 10 minutes that's not properly underwritten and they're never going

to pay out in the way that you want them to. All right, guys, I feel like that is enough on insurance and what's happened during the week and our money wins. So I think that's all we have time for today. I mean, we've been recording for like 40 minutes now, guys. Wild. So just before we head off, we'd like to acknowledge and pay our respects to Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. They're the traditional custodians of the lands, the waterways and the guys all across australia we thank you for sharing and the caring for the land on which we are able to learn we pay our respects to elders past and present and we share our friendship and our kindness and remember guys that the advice shared on she's on the money is generally nature and does

not consider your individual circumstances she's on the money exists purely for educational purposes and shouldn't be relied upon to make an investment or a financial decision and we promise victoria divine is an authorized representative of australia pacific funds management proprietary limited abn 34132463257afsl339151 see you next week guys bye guys bye