She's On The Money - ‘Is The Cover In Your Super Enough?’ And Other Quickfire Insurance Questions With Skye Wealth

Episode Date: May 26, 2026

So you can be overinsured and you can be underinsured, but can you ever just be insured enough in your super?  ‘10 Things I Hate About You’ jokes aside, we yapped about insurance with friend of the pod Phil Thompson from Skye Wealth. Join us on the Deep Dive couch as we unpack a couple of case studies to demonstrate what it might look like to be overinsured, plus how an underinsured person might get sufficient cover, followed by a quickfire round of questions from our She’s on the Money community. Tune in if you’ve ever wondered: what percentage of your income should be spent on insurance, if the coverage in your superannuation is enough to see you through, or if you’ll still be covered with ADHD. Relatable, tbh. Self-employed, unemployed, or in your 40s, Phil’s got an A for so many of your Qs.  SORT YOUR INSURANCE: Thanks once again to our partners Skye Wealth for bringing this episode to your feed. If you're ready to chat to a professional about your insurance, we have a long standing referral partnership with Skye Wealth and only ever partner with people we trust. And you can check out their savings comparison tool. EVEN MORE EPISODES: Listen to our insurance playlist here.Join our Facebook Group (Search for: ShesontheMoneyAUS) AKA the ultimate support network for money advice and inspiration. Ask questions, share tips, and celebrate your wins with a like-minded crew of 300,000+.Follow us on Instagram @shesonthemoneyaus for Q&As, bite-sized tips, daily money inspo... and relatable money memes that just get you. Acknowledgement of Country By Nartarsha Bamblett aka Queen Acknowledgements (queenacknowledgements.com)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. If you do choose to buy a financial product, read the PDS, TMD and obtain appropriate financial advice tailored towards your needs. Victoria Devine and She's On The Money are authorised representatives of Money Sherpa PTY LTD ABN - 321649 27708, AFSL - 451289.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

My name is Natasha Bamblett, I'm a proud First Nations woman, and I'm here to acknowledge country. Tii, gilinyan ganya, nianakaka yao yinbina waka, nianakai nianbina yakarumja, duminyagumiga dumiga ithawaka nirawamundamun imalan, mumubangaraboma ininyalan waka, gaunanyakarumja, wutunarana. Hello beautiful friends. We gather on the lands of the Aboriginal people. We thank, acknowledge and respect the Aboriginal people's land that we're gathering on today. Take pleasure in all the land and respect all that you see. She's On The Money podcast acknowledges culture, country, community and connections,

bringing you the tools, knowledge and resources for you to thrive. She's on the money. She's on the money. Hello friends and welcome to She's On The Money, the podcast that helps you build a financial future that has your back. Now, let's be very honest. If you weren't able to work for a few months, would you have enough in your savings to keep the lights on, keep the fridge filled and your bills paid? What if suddenly you couldn't work full time or had to provide ongoing care for a loved one going through a similar situation?

For some of you, unfortunately, this is not actually a hypothetical. We've heard from a number of you who are affected by health conditions and life events that have forced you to take some time off work or roll back your commitments altogether. And while a lot of you have had insurance, money win, many of you experienced the very rude awakening of not having enough cover to see you through. Today's episode is all about insurance and making sure that you've got a safety net no matter what happens. And we'll get into it right after this break. Hello, my friends. You've probably gathered it's Victoria Devine, but with me is my very good friend, Phil. He's the CEO of Sky Wealth. Phil Thompson, welcome back to the show.

Hello. Thanks for having me. I'm not going to lie. I didn't think that when we had you on our show for the very first time, we would have people say, please get back the white man who talks about insurance, but here we are. That's right. A mainstay of She's On The Money. Yeah, you like kind of becoming part of the furniture and like we talk about you on the show all the time. We'd be like, oh, well, Phil would say, oh, well, Phil's company, oh, well, Phil's team, like we're in the cult.

I think there's an exemption for me maybe. Is that fair? I like it, but I've got you back, not just because we like you. We've got you back to help answer some of our community's insurance questions. So today we are going to discuss what kind of cover you might consider depending on your lifestyle and your financial goals. we're also going to be pulling apart two examples so we've got two profiles to compare what it might actually look like to be over insured versus under and the consequences of both of these situations phil i feel like everyone kind of leans in and goes well what's the problem with being over insured but there is a problem with it isn't it yeah it costs money it costs a lot of money so

i'm very excited for this conversation not because it's an exciting conversation but i hope that it means that people get their stuff together and actually just up their insurances or change their insurances, which is kind of hypocritical of me because what have you been chasing me for? I send you an email probably once every three weeks and I've previously just emailed you. Now I'm copying Steve in. So, cause I know Steve will help you get that life admin under control as well. The way I laughed at the way you said that as well, you were like, Steve, I'm emailing you because your wife isn't doing what she said she was going to. And I was like, why are you dobbing on me?

I didn't want Steve to feel like I was, you know, following him up because you told me that he was like, Victoria, we're going to get this sorted. It should have been a microactive feminism from your behalf being like, oh, I always chase up the man on life admin things. Like that's what it should have been. Not you, actually, Victoria. I was throwing you under your bus so that your husband would chase you. Hey, let me just say, I also followed up with,

I'm happy to come over and help you guys fill out these forms. You just got to fill it out. Let's go. I know. So I think that's a very good example of the plumber who has a leaky tap because I'll tell you to do it, but don't do as I do, do as I say, right? So today our community has the floor, not Victoria, and they actually have a bunch of questions on the types of cover that they might need or the types of cover that they might need to revisit, i.e. me, because you deal with personal insurances literally day in, day out. When are people most likely going to need to revisit what personal insurances they hold? Yeah. Most of the life stages that trigger an idea of, hey, we need to think about this is babies,

as you've just gone through. Twice. Whoops. Yeah. Multiple times now. Buying a house or upgrading or downgrading houses is a really good trigger event. But really starting a full-time job, once you're fully reliant on your income is a really good idea to think, actually, do I need to have income protection? Is this a good time to get it sorted out? So they're the kind of three big trigger points, but then changing careers, what does that look like? Do I need to bring my cover down? Do I need to change the occupation? Because I'm in lower risk occupation. They're the type of trigger points that is a great time to just go, okay, personal insurance, let's get that life admin done. Yeah. And I feel like

that could be a get out of jail free card for some people listening. Cause they'll be like, well, I don't have a significant life event happening right now. And for the people who maybe are thinking, well, that's not for me, Phil, you and I both know that those life events are just the triggers for people to go, oh, I should get my stuff together. But when should people really be looking at their personal insurances? Not just during life changes, right? Yeah.

I mean, today, if that's the assumption that you've got it all set up properly and let's go and revisit. But if you don't have it set up, I give a lecture to all our associates in the office almost every day about making sure they've got insurance set up. And it's really important to make sure you've got the foundation set. Everyone likes talking about investing, wealth creation, how we're going to get ahead or how we're going to manage the cost of living. It's really important to think about the downside impact of if something was to happen, do we have a safety net there or do we just rely on government support or NDIS? What does that look like? Or can we build in our own safety nets using insurance? Yeah. And I feel like I jump up and down about it all the time. Just get it done. Get it done today.

The younger you are, the easier it's going to be, the better it's going to be in terms of outcomes. Like, yes, you might already have experienced a significant health event, but we can work around that. And I think so many people go, oh, I'm probably not going to be improved for like, you know, income protection because I've heard so much about mental health and, you know, my friend got declined because of mental health it's like go see an actual insurance advisor and talk to them because we can get a mental health exclusion so that every other circumstance is covered and

yes you might have an exclusion on one thing but don't throw the baby out with bath water like it just I feel like so many times I'm hearing recently just blanket statements of like oh well I'd get declined because of my knee and it's like but you're gonna compromise the rest of your entire body and your financial future because you would only want to claim on your need. And also things like, oh, I went to my super fund and got declined. Well, you know, that's one insurance company that your super fund is using. And they have group insurance and therefore they have group blanket statements that they throw around to go, oh, no, can't be bothered with that because they don't have the nuance

and the depth of proper underwriting. And that's not saying that it's bad insurance. It just means if you do have an exclusion, they're likely to say no because that's how they keep their fees low. Yeah. And this is why, you know, it was a great conversation I had just yesterday with a, with a new client and they said, I went online and I tried to do it. Our occupation is pretty risky. They work in mining. Can, you know, and we just got quotes online and we can't get any cover. And so instead of thinking, well, that's a blanket rule. We can't get any cover. They went and booked in a phone call with us and said, Hey, is there anything you can do?

And I just asked a few questions about what they do for work. Exactly. Is it, are you going underground? Is it open cut mine? Like, they're all the nuances that, you know, working with a professional, we can go, actually, we can get cover. There will be some limitations, but there's not a blanket statement. So, I mean, that was great for that client to then, sure, do some research online, but then escalate it to a professional and go, okay, I need help. Yeah. And I've seen this in our community a lot as well, where maybe they have seen some advertising for an insurance company. And so they're like, oh, that insurance company sounds great. And then they go on the website and realise that they don't meet the criteria. Well, the criteria for different

insurers is different everywhere. And so this person would have come to you and been like, I work in mining. And immediately you might've gone, oh, insurer A is definitely not going to cover it, but I'm going to call the BDM at insurer B and just quickly check what their policy is. And that's where you're asking the nuanced questions of like, do you go underground or is it open cut? What does this look like? Because then you go, okay, well, insurer B, no, they're not going to be the right fit. Insurer C though, slightly more expensive, but we're going to get the cover and there's no exclusions like that's the messaging or that's like the knowledge that only people doing it day in day out are going to have because unless you're

going to deep dive into advisor only policies that you already can't access on your own and read all of the pds in terms and conditions and have a relationship with a bdm who goes oh so they just sit in an office field yeah let me let me personally take their application and see that through to the underwriter. You can't do that yourself. You need a fill in your life. And another example is yesterday as well. We took a client scenario. They're taking three months off to study full-time. Must be nice. They've been doing their job for 10 years and they're taking three months off working one day a week, paid work. Every underwriter said, no, we won't offer them income protection.

So I just pick up the phone and I talked to my little team. I'm like, that's ridiculous. We can get this person cover. Picked up the phone of the underwriter and said, I want to place this policy with you because overarching, after that three-month period, you're the best place to do it. They've been doing it for 10 years. They're going to be doing it again for probably 10 years after that. This isn't a mid-20-year-old just kind of fluttering around and deciding what they want to do in life. They're doing a master's degree. It's also so they can knuckle down even further into that specific career. Like, I really don't think I'm not committed here. And so the underwriter was like, oh, well, it's a no, but I'll get a second opinion. I was like-

As you should. Yeah, let's get a second opinion. Underwriter came back. Yep, no worries. As long as they're going back to the same role, we can replace the cover. So things like that, just having that relationship with an underwriter to go, hey, we can get this across the line for these reasons is conversations we do as advisors all day, every day. Yeah. And I mean, I'm sick of catching up with BDMs because I used to be in the financial advice space. I'm sick of catching up with BDMs and them being like, oh, hey, how are you? What have you been doing? And I'd be like, oh, I'm doing an ep with Phil next week. And they go, I love Phil.

sick of hearing it. Sick of it. Sick of it. Feels great. Like can't believe he just does insurances. Like that would do my head in, but I adore him. Yeah, everyone does. So thank you for taking it for the team. Our community obviously adore you as well. And they actually had a lot of questions. I put on our Instagram stories that you were coming in and they bombarded me. So I've collated a few. Can we dive straight in? Let's go. All right. And we're going to try and be like a little bit quick fire with this because I want to spend as much time as possible on your case studies because that's like the grit, right? But is the insurance in your superannuation enough? Maybe. Like really, there are limitations

with cover within super. If you're not gainfully employed at the time you want to claim on income protection, you can't get covered. While an advised policy, you will get paid out. So there is some cover, but often most people won't have enough cover, anywhere near enough cover. And some of the case studies we'll look at. The default level of covers several hundred thousand dollars, if that. So high level, you can get an advisor to set up a proper policy for you and get your super fund to pay for it. So you may as well do it that way. That's how I do it. I mean, mine needs to be increased, but that is how it is set up. When you get around to do it, that's how you will do it. Yep. I hate this episode already.

I love it. I love it. Not very often do you self-shame. No, but I have to be transparent with my community. I can't have you on and be like, oh my God, you should do this. I always do this. And then be like, yeah, Phil's been chasing me for that. But also, do you know, I have recorded probably like three money diaries recently and the three diarists have been like, cause I ask now, I'm like, have you got your insurance disordered? They're like, yes, I heard last week that one of the diarists ghosted Sky Wealth and that's me too. And now I'm going to call them again. And I was like, you call Phil, he's used to being ghosted. I did that. Like just if you've engaged.

It's very normal. It's very normal. This is the thing. Like insurance is never urgent. It's just so important. It's not. So I'm not here to shame you, VD. No.

Do you know what it is? Like having spoken to a lot of people who have said, oh, I engaged in the process and then I backtracked. Like it's just quite confronting having these conversations about your personal health. What happens if you die? What happens to my partner? What happens to my assets? Like it's kind of scary.

but then also it's not cheap and yes it is going to come out of your super most of the time and it can be structured really well but you're like wow that's like a thousand dollars or it's a bit more not the advice like feels really reasonably priced don't worry but like you do still have to pay for the insurance and I think a lot of us go yeah I want to get my stuff sorted I want to get my stuff sorted and then you kind of just see the receipt and you're like oh maybe next week but it is really important to revisit it. So, Phil, another question. If I've ghosted you, are you going to be mad and bitter when I come back? No, not at all. For us, we understand insurance is never that urgent for individuals. Happens to financial advisors across the board.

And so, yeah, I mean, we definitely don't get mad at the end of the day. Our job- You just get even? No. The core purpose of our job and like our mission at Sky is to help everyday Australians access good, affordable advice. That's what we want to do. And what we want to do is we want to educate everyone who comes and works with us and we want to empower them to make the decision that's right for them. And so if that decision is an informed decision not to take our cover, happy days.

That's not an issue at all. Now, I disagree with it. I think you should have cover, but that's not my decision because I don't pay your premiums. But as long as there's an informed decision to make a choice and someone's made that choice, then we don't know hard feelings at all from our end. That is literally the premise of She's On The Money. And I have so many people say to me, oh my God, Victoria, I wouldn't want to tell you what my spending habits are. They're so bad. And I'm like, I couldn't care less. Like I care that you were given the information

so that you could make an informed decision. How you spend it, I don't care, babe. Go buy another handbag, go buy some shoes, build up your emergency fund. Obviously I'm going to have a preference because I want you to be financially secure. But if I've given you every single tool and resource and done everything within my ability to put on the table, basically on a silver platter, education that I think you deserve at a bare minimum, and then you choose the life you want to live. Amazing. Happy days. Happy days. Cause you made an informed decision and that's all I can ask of you. But if you didn't know that was there and then all of a sudden you needed insurance and you're like, damn, I wish that I'd, you know, I wish I'd known, that's where

I fail. But if I taught you and then you chose not to, and then you regret it, babe, that's on you. That's actually not part of my decision-making process. One question I found interesting was what percentage of your income should you be spending on insurances? Oh, that's a great question. So everyone's different. So if you're a builder and you're working on a worksite and you're mid fifties, your percentage of your income going towards insurance is going to be much higher because of the higher risk factors. If you're an office worker and earning a lot of money, the risk factor is really low from an insurance point of view. So the premiums will be quite low compared to your income. So every time we deliver advice

to our clients, we always have a table called an affordability assessment. So we show what the premiums that are paid through your bank account, what percentage of your income does that make up? and that is generally 1%. You know, if it's 3%, I'm pretty shocked. And then we also have an affordability assessment. How much of the premium is coming from your super or percentage of that? And I think, I don't have the averages in front of me right now, but I think we normally sit at around 15% of your super contributions going towards your insurance premiums for our clients. Now, as to have full coverage for all the different types of policies that we look at, that's a general guide for us. But as I said, it can be more expensive, it can be cheaper,

we make a judgment call that we will actually limit our advice and make changes if it is too high. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Next question I've got, if you have ADHD, can this give you a blanket mental health exclusion? Yeah. Some insurers do blanket mental health exclusion, which is like broad every mental health condition under the sun. But there are some insurers who are moving towards just ADHD only exclusions. Very cool. Joke's on them. I got my insurance before they started putting exclusions on adhd i'm lucky yeah but also hilariously that's why i can do what i do so good luck getting me out of the office and this is i know you want to show you know quick answers i won't talk anymore but uh you're like there is a lot of nuance here there's so much

nuance i'm trying not to go do you want to give any nuance or no let's let's let's keep we can do a whole neuro spicy episode one day more than happy i think that would be cool yeah like because there are a lot of people who are like what the hell is mental health exclusion how deep does it go and there's a lot of insurance law in the background like oh my gosh like go back 10 years ago and mental health exclusions what what is mental health exactly like and then they started giving them and we didn't like as an advisor at that point in time i remember getting my first mental health exclusion and i was like sorry what sir yeah like what is this i remember it as well and you call up the underwriter just arguing with them.

Yeah, I was literally fighting on the phone. What are you talking about? They just had a relationship breakdown and got prescribed some medication that they never took. Why are you doing a mental health exclusion? Oh, we have to, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, it was actual crazy times. Like I'm surprised that some of the insurers,

like I'm still friends with some of their BDMs because you hired one of their BDMs, iconic, can't believe she's still my friend because I'd call up Zurich and be like, what the heck? My client deserves better. and yeah, we're besties now. I think they get where we're coming from. Next question I've got, my insurance was set up before I went on maternity leave. I'm not sure when I'll go back. What happens with my insurance? Could I make a claim? Yeah, I'm going to try and skip over all the nuance because this is a deep topic as well. That's why I'm giving you deep questions because

people want quick fire answers, not essays filled. Yeah, let me do it. Okay. If your insurance is inside of super and you've actually finished up your job and you're not gainfully employed, then your insurance within your super fund won't pay out anything on income protection claim. Brute. If you've set it up with an advisor, there will be a feature in that policy that they will look back over the last, generally over the last 24 months and go, what was the best 12 months of your income? So you can be on parental leave for 12 months and not earn an income. And still, if you're injured, ill, sick, and you can't return to work, you can still get paid your

full income protection benefit. For the people who are long-term parental leave or part-time, you know, and what does that look like? That's just a discussion from when you set up the policy, have you had any health events that may impact increasing in the future? Because sometimes it may be worth overpaying for insurance, even if you're not going to get paid a claim, if it's going to limit any future increase on your income protection. Short answer, I go speak to your advisor who helped you set it up. Yeah. And there's another question here, which I, it doesn't play into it, but it makes me think along the same lines. Cause it's like for us, you and I have both said insurance, get it set up today. Like just organize it today,

organize it. Someone has said, I'm organizing a house and land package. We're partway through the process. At what point in this process should I be talking to an insurance advisor? Well, congratulations. That's so exciting. On the house and land package. Mortgages and insurance, they're both painful experiences to go through from a life admin point of view. I guess we're both in that boat. So there is a fair amount of work. And so we've got to recognize there is work. Generally speaking, I like setting up insurance for when you have the mortgage because as early as possible is the ideal. But when you've got that mortgage, you've got that obligation there

that you need to be servicing that mortgage. And so therefore that comes with, you need an income. Therefore, if you don't have an income, you may not be able to service that mortgage. So i generally like to say once you've purchased it or done all that work do it before you move into the house because once you move into the house you got to set up electricity internet you got to do all of that other life admin then you're thinking about buying furniture what does all of that look like if you do it before you said so much waiting time during that period yeah your settlement period can be 90 days yeah um and so yeah getting it sorted out in that time period or at least starting the process and then either putting the responsibility onto sky to get the

work done. Or then once you've got the advice, go ahead with the insurer. Because most of the time with insurance, you're actually not doing stuff. You're just waiting on the insurer to do all the work and get the medical reports. So a lot of people think, oh, there must be heaps involved. Well, no, there is two points in time to fill in a form. Once you've filled in those forms, that's really all you need to do, Victoria, is fill in the form. Really? That's crazy. I wish everybody in my community knew it was as easy as that for me personally. Yeah, exactly. I'm not good at life admin. I'm sorry. Me too. Hey, I have a lot of empathy because I'm exactly the same. But I promise I will do it. Next question I have is,

do I need income protection if I am self-employed? Yeah, for sure. But I'm self-employed, Phil. Will your income last if you are unable to work? No. No, it's actually worse because I'm self-employed and I don't have any sick leave. Yes. And this is where there is a lot of nuance because insurers may actually limit your income protection benefit amount because you're doing a lot of expenses through your business. People think I'm earning $150,000, but the actual salary and profit is much less than that, or it could be much greater than that. They're all the things that you need to consider when you're self-employed. Yeah. All right. All right. We're going to take a very short break, but when we return, we're going to be chatting through some

over the examples Phil's brought along of what it's like to be overinsured and what it's like to be underinsured. So don't go anywhere. All right, Phil, it is time for a couple of case studies because sometimes things just stick better when you give me a real life example, like other people doing their life admin. But you've done some redacting, you've done some snooping on your clients to give us some well actually we did a shout out to the she's on the money community to fill in this form we did and so this is a community members we didn't you know do it without consent like we made sure that the person i'm not snooping on people no but i like to call it snooping i like to call it pervy because it just sounds better yeah okay like it's it's

like when i was a financial advisor do you really think that like i was filling in those forms absolutely no judgment of course but I wasn't like oh like this means nothing I'd be like oh interesting like I want to know about my clients and if your advisor doesn't want to know about you and the nuance wrong advisor yeah I agree wrong advice like I want to know about you I want to know what you're doing so let's talk about the first person who's over insured can you give me like the top level who are they what do they do like what are their jobs what are their incomes? So the form, we ask the community members just to give us age, some idea about the existing car van. We allow people to upload their details. So for this person, they are

single, 45 years old, no kids and an executive assistant. How much money have they got or how much money do they earn? In terms of income, $95,000. That's good. Yeah. Yeah. So in terms of over-insurance, the interesting thing about this community member is they have life insurance and the income protection insurance. Okay. Now, I'll give you a bit more deep dive into income protection. I was about to say, I have both of those things. Yeah.

Income protection, we've got an agreed value policy. Yeah, very nice. So she set it up a while ago. Yeah, this is an old policy you can't get today. I have one of those. I don't have one of those, actually. I didn't set one up. How does the insurance advisor not set up an agreed value policy?

I only did it because I scrambled when they said that they were going to get rid of them, And I was like, well, if they're going to be grandfathered, I want to get me one of those. VD, this is when I judge you for not doing life admin is I don't judge you without fully understanding that I'm exactly the same. Because when it was getting taken out, I knew it for a long time and I said to myself, I've got to sort my income protection out. You know what I did?

You didn't do it. Didn't do it. You know what I've also been telling people in the office? I've got to increase my life and TBD insurance. Oh, me too. Guess what I've done? None of that. Exactly.

So you haven't even done yours. No, I haven't increased my life and TPD. Okay, so I don't, like I have those insurances. Yes, I've got them too. I'm paying for them, but we haven't, both of us haven't increased them. So take that as you will. I've got a lot of cover. I just want more.

Yeah. And same with you. You've got a good decent amount of cover. No, I want to pay more premiums so my wife can be comfortable if something happens. That's exactly why I want to do it. But I think that a lot of, yeah. Anyway. Tell me more about the overinsurance.

Because I think if you took my situation and what we're going to move to, right now I'm underinsured, but I think we're going to move to overinsured because I didn't realize the anxiety that came with children. Anyway, tell me. So for me, the things that I would think about for this person is being an executive assistant, do we need agreed value? So that policy is probably 25% to 40% more expensive, depending on the provider, just the agreed value option.

So what that means is you're guaranteed to get that benefit amount while an indemnity contract, they look back at your last, depending on the style of contract, they look at the last three years and go, what was your best 12 months of income? Were you earning the amount to justify this benefit amount? Now, for me, the questions I would have for this person who's an executive assistant is how much does your income fluctuate? If it hasn't fluctuated in the last 10 years and it's not likely to fluctuate in the next 10 years, do you really want to pay that extra premium for that agreed value policy that may actually not be worthwhile for that individual. Now, if they came to me and said, hey, I'm running, she's on the money, my income may fluctuate over time because

I'm a small business owner. Then I would say for yourself, VD, yeah, agreed value makes a lot of sense. Let's go and increase that. But if you're an employee, been doing it for a long time and plan to be doing it for a long time, that's where I would say maybe you're paying high premiums for the benefit that may not be there. The thing to consider is life insurance, you know, 45 single no kids. Is there a need for life insurance? I would much rather allocate that money towards a trauma insurance policy or a disability insurance policy because they're two policies that we don't actually have in this suite of products. Yeah. And for those of us playing along at home, we have done, Phil and I have done episodes before breaking down income protection

and trauma and what these different insurances are. I won't use the time that I have with him today to explain each and every single one in depth because it just, it doesn't make sense to do so. So go back. I'll make sure that they're linked in the show notes so that you can get the full education. But when you're single, life insurance, yes, you might want to pay off your house so that you can leave it to somebody in the future, but you're not setting up a family. You're not like, you know, paying for education into the future or for your partner to continue to stay at home. Like trauma though is something that I would be like, okay, well, you're single. There's no one to help you if something does happen. So those things, yeah, red flag for me

too. And these are things that, you know, we've done a full review of like what need we would require for someone like this based on the, we didn't have a debt figure in this example. For me, I think covering income until age 65 is really important with a combination of income protection and disability. So that requirement means that there's probably, I think, an underinsurance of around $625,000 for disability cover because the income protection only covers a certain amount of that income. And trauma insurance, we're relatively conservative in terms of our levels of cover. Some advisors will have a lot more cover than what we recommend our clients, but we recommend 30% of income for 12 months. If you're off work, you'll get that income

protection payment as well. And a hundred thousand dollars for medical expenses or, you know, anything else that you need that money for. We've also got to be reasonable. And then like your client can be unreasonable. And like, I don't mean that in a bad way, but like someone like me, for example, I know that my trauma insurance is higher than what you guys recommended. Cause I just felt more comfortable with that. And I'm about to increase it again. But you guys basically used that methodology and said, this is what it is because you're also being conservative with your client's funds. Like at the end of the day, you're still spending a client's money on insurances. And it's like, well, in a perfect world, this is actually the biggest waste of

money ever. Like in a perfect world, you never claim on insurances and you get to the age of 65 and you say, wow, I didn't need that. Perfect. Like that is the outcome. But yeah, I just think it's really interesting that you can always negotiate. Is the word negotiate or just go back and be like, oh, Phil, that feels a bit low. Could we tweak it a little bit? Like whatever you get in terms of advice from your advisor isn't set in stone. It's like a, here's our recommendations and you could go, could I have more? What would happen if I had less? Like we can chat. Hey, and that's a great segment. I didn't even tell you I had this data, but 50% of our clients who come to us actually change the quote before we apply. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Cause they're just

like, oh, I'd be more comfortable with X or Y. Yeah. Yeah. And at the end of the day, we don't mind what people go ahead with. Our job is to educate people, understand the policies, how much cover we think is important, but then empower them to make the choices right for them. And so that is some people come back, actually, I want more cover. So, you know, for my situation, I've got way more cover than I would recommend myself as a client. Even how I'm saying I need to increase my cover. It's just circumstances have changed. Yeah. My needs analysis tells me I'm fine. I've got heaps of cover, but I want more. But yeah, 50% of our clients will say, yeah, thanks for the recommendation. Can we tweak it in these little ways? And that's the advisor's

job to educate someone in terms of going, hey, that big number, the life insurance or disability insurance is always the biggest number. Bringing that down may not actually have as big an impact as changing another feature. So I can show you two different options. Yeah. And the coolest thing there is like, we get your recommendations, you've taken our personal circumstances into consideration. But then once the advice comes back, you might go, oh, well, if something did happen to me, I'd love to leave 10 grand to, you know, my mom or my dad or, you know, something like that. And that can be built in at that point, or it can be built in before, like you could tell them, but sometimes the advice comes back and you go, well, you would have X. You go, oh, wait,

hold on. Could I have a little bit more? Or you go, oh, actually, I don't know if you know this, but here's some nuance. Like, you know, my family would just sell the house. They wouldn't need the house. So like maybe we don't need as much cover there. It just gets really interesting. And for this case study that we looked at, we went and did a quote, adding disability cover, adding the trauma cover. And we were looking at like what it would cost to replace the income protection. So it's not agreed value. So we're kind of going downscale on that income protection. But again, that depends on the client's situation and if they would need it. But we would save them money by moving providers and adding those to other policies for $130,000

of trauma and $600,000 of disability. And in this quote, the fun fact is that we would actually have life cover as well because it's often cheaper just to add life insurance. So there would be no loss of life insurance. in fact, an increase of that, two other policies and overall cheaper with the one downside being no agreed value income protection. So you're underinsured. We're going to fix it all up, but it's going to cost you less. Yeah. That sounds like a pretty good deal. I'm not going to lie. Again, nuance. There's so much nuance, but we're just choosing an example and that's why I had to

be like, Phil, they are quick fire. We don't want the nuance. We want the high level because obviously this isn't financial advice, but if you ask an advisor. Yeah, I know I am one. The only nuance is health, your current health history will impact that recommendation. Of course. If we would actually choose to do that. All right. Now we have another one, which has some pretty significant health complications, you could say. Give me a lowdown. Who are they? What's going on in their life? How much do they earn? How much cover do they have? Do they not have? Yep. So another single, no kids, 33 years old, working as a scientist. Now they have some group cover. We have cool people in our community.

Unisuper. Yeah. Scientists. Yeah. Big dog. And so they've got group cover within Unisuper. It's cheap as chips in terms of it's costing them $160 per year. Money win. Now in our form, we asked the premiums, but we didn't get the benefit amount. So I've gone to Unisuper and worked out. What is the level of cover? We're talking about just under $260,000 worth of life insurance and disability. For $160 per year, not too bad. But in terms of if this person was to never be able to work again or be off work for a short period of time, there's no income protection. We've got no trauma insurance. And if this individual was to be off work forever, $260,000 is really not going very far. It's not enough. Rhiannon Tracy, who came on the podcast, and I

will also link her episode in the show notes because she was phenomenal. She was one of the first people that we talked to on the She's On The Money podcast about claiming on insurance because I think it was the day before her 21st birthday, she dove into a pool in Bali and became a paraplegic. And so we talked about her lifetime cost and what she did and didn't have and how much disability was costing her. And we calculated out that to live her life, just a normal life, would need about $1.7 million in payouts in a perfect world to have covered the rest of her life. So that's a lot. Yeah. And people just underestimate the value of their income. Yeah. You just think, oh, 100 grand, that's so much money. My friend, unfortunately, that's not

going to cover you to the age of 65 and beyond. Well, so this 33-year-old, great question about the value of their income, 33-year-old scientist on $109,000 a year. Good deal. The value of that income between now and retirement, assuming your retirement's 65, when a 33-year-old is 65, that's not retirement age. It'll probably be much later. But if you project it out, it's $5.4 million of income that's going to be lost. Now, sure, the ATO is taking a decent chunk of that over time. We could have a whole conversation about that. Yeah, which we won't. Yes, there's loss of tax, but that's the value of that income over time. So the things that are interesting about this one is, you know, there has been a history of

endometriosis, PCOS, you know, polyps on the intestine and the BRCA gene as well. Which is a rough one when it comes to insurance. And I had to go through this a number of times with clients when we're going through the underwriting process and the BRCA gene conversation would come up and insurers hate the BRCA gene. So give me a little bit of nuance for those who maybe don't know what the BRCA gene is and how it impacts your ability to get insured. Well, I've got great news for you, actually. It's changed? The government legislated that insurance companies cannot use genetic tests

to impact your insurance policy. But they used to. They used to. From one April. When I was in it, I love this, when I was an advisor. This year. This year they changed it. Yeah, one April they changed it.

Now it doesn't get fully implemented until one October. Whatever, I'm excited. Yeah, it will be there. So one insurance company doesn't ask the question anymore, so they've already changed it. Every other insurer still asks it because there's a system processes to change the question. But from 1 October, it's illegal to ask questions about genetic testing. That is phenomenal because for those of you who maybe haven't heard of the BRCA gene before, the BRCA gene is related to your probability of getting breast cancer. And so if you carry the BRCA gene, I believe that you are 80% more likely to get breast cancer during your lifetime because it's genetic.

Very likely you will find out that you have the BRCA gene or that you're the carrier of the BRCA gene when your mom or your grandmother gets diagnosed with breast cancer. Because, you know, oncologists will say, hey, can we test this? And they'll say, oh, you're carrying the BRCA gene, get your kids tested because there's a very high probability that this could have been passed on to them. And that is historically for me been a devastating conversation because I would have to say to very fit, very young, very healthy people, I'm so sorry, but they're not going to cover you for breast cancer. And by the way, you're more likely to get it. And that was so terrible. But the idea that they're lifting that, that's made my day. Like I'm so excited about that.

And in the back of my mind, I've got like four people that I need to text to be like, hey, your old advisor here. I don't know if you know this, but can you call your current advisor? I'm sure their current advisor is on top of it, but I will not be letting that one slip. It's big. It's almost like I chose that case study for you to talk about that. You fed me some information. Yeah, so.

Oh, Phil's on the strategy. It is. It's great news. It's so great. Because now, again, there is nuance here. Let me tell you the nuance. If you have family history of breast cancer, it can still impact your cover. Yes.

And that is fine. It's more for people who went and have gone, you know what, let's just get a genetic test. I want to see what's going on. I want open eyes, understand what's going on. Those people won't be impacted by it. So if you don't have any family history of breast cancer, but you found out you do have the bracket gene, then it won't impact your insurance application from 1 October, 2026. That is definitely something that I thought about actually when I was trying to conceive

for the very first time, because my husband and I went and did genetic testing. and it was at that point that I said to my husband, our insurances are all good, aren't they? Because I didn't want to do that genetic testing until I knew my insurances were set and forget because anything I found out after that couldn't be, you know, taken out of my insurances. So just the idea that there's a lot more freedom now makes so much sense. Yeah. And so I guess this is the reason I brought up this case study is because polyps in the intestine, PCOS, endometriosis, there was a comment saying, hey, I looked into changing cover briefly due to medical issues. And I was advised if I swapped my insurance, I wouldn't be covered for

particular illnesses. And I wasn't able to get covered due to the outstanding endometriosis diagnosis. And they've said they've been waiting for surgery for 10 years. Not that uncommon if you're going through the public system. Now, I don't know if that's true. And the reason why I say that is because you hear comments about, oh, I got declined for endometriosis. And so you project that and go, oh, maybe that's my situation. Or you speak to an advisor who may not specialize in it and go, oh, I'm pretty sure we can't get you covered. And people take that as kind of gospel. And this is kind of what I wanted to kind of touch on is that may have been true at that point in time, but it doesn't mean you don't revisit it again. Yeah. Because things change. Even I didn't

know that because I'm now out of the industry and now I'm a bit like, oh, am I losing my touch? I'm not on top of it anymore, Phil. Which is fine. You're busy. That's why I brought you in. You're busy. I've still got the network. Yeah. They're the things that it's like underwriting changes all the time. Rules will change over time. So even if you went and did a full assessment with Sky and we told this client that they can't get cover, it doesn't mean it's the case forever. It is means that maybe come back in a few years' time. We'll revisit everything. We'll get your disclosures again. We'll send it off to insurers. If it's a full decline again, we'll let you know that that's the case.

Yeah. And I think that that's where a lot of people just assume they might come to you and it's a set and forget kind of thing, but you kind of fall into the SkyWealth community and you just text your advisor or message your advisor or email them and be like, hey, my situation's changed. And they'll be like, yeah, yeah. Let me just like send you the forms to update these things. So there's no, you having to go and do a manual process every single time. Like they've got all your information. We can update things. We can retest things like Phil guaranteed would have put if he said, Oh, let me touch base in a year because like we can revisit that or we can talk about that exclusion changing. He's already got it in his

calendar and he will pester you because he pesters me. And it's not just because he pesters me. It's because I have the whole community being like, how great's Phil? And like, I love it. Cause it's Like, I know, but just shut up about Phil, you know? The last thing I wanted to touch on is we did a comparison for this person with Unisuper. A lot of people think go to your super fund, it's cheaper. And we did the same levels of cover that we would consider income protection, disability to life. And Unisuper was $2,600 per year in premiums.

If we had a decent level of cover, most of that cost is income protection for young people. And that is expensive. Like I think that if you're going to get receipt shock or like bill shock, it's probably going to be at your income protection. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, for young people, that's the thing that protects the bulk amount of claims. But we looked at an advice policy that was $1,500.

Okay. And that is a significant saving. And like, I know a lot of people will say things like, oh, but it's coming out of my super. Yeah. That's money that can compound in your super every single year and make you more money in retirement. Like this is a good outcome for everybody.

And this is why all day, every day, we're comparing super premiums versus the premiums we can set up. And I'm so sick of hearing that, oh, my super fund's cheap. I'll just go there. We are rolling out on our website that every time we tell a client, hey, go from your super fund to this insurance provider, we're going to show that data, just the numbers, obviously no client data. We're showing the numbers on average of how much we're saving our clients.

And so I'm looking at it as of today, the average super premiums would be just under $4,000. And the average premiums that we have set up is just under $3,000. So it's like a massive savings. And I know you're a data geek as well. Nah, what are you talking about? We literally have gone, so you can click on our thing and go, which super fund am I with? And you can see the number of clients we've moved from that super fund and how much the average saving is. Spicy. And I think that's sick. What's the number for Unisuper? Because we were just

talking about it. Not because I'm throwing them under the bus. Unisuper, still call me. I actually love Unisuper because they have defined benefits. They do. I like Unisuper. At the moment, we've got low client numbers. So this is eight clients. The average saving is like 50% cheaper. So literally half price is the average. Sorry, Unisuper. We love you, but also sorry we care more about our clients. So you can search alphabetically. You can search from the highest saving to the lowest saving. That's so spicy.

And we don't game this either. We're showing if we're moving someone to a more expensive product as well. So if we're saying to a client, you should be paying more money for these premiums and here's all the reasons why, we'll show that data. I'm going to put the link to that direct website in my show notes as well, because I just know people are going to be like, sorry, where? Like they're scrolling through their podcast thing right now to get to the show notes to be like, oh, spicy information.

Because that's where I live. Phil, unfortunately, that is all we have time for today. I feel like you're the best person to talk to when it comes to comparing insurance and understanding where we might fall. So thank you so much for coming in and sharing your wisdom with us. It is always appreciated. Thank you. And as always, my friends, there's so much more for our community to take away and consider

when it comes to personal coverage. If your insurance is in need of a little bit of a health check, very brazen shout out to our friend Phil and his entire team at Sky Wealth to set up a system that actually has your back. We're going to make sure to add all of those links we've talked about today into the show notes and if you found this episode helpful or even possibly life-changing, please let us know by leaving a review and subscribing so that you never miss a beat. Have a great week, my friends, and I will see you on Friday. and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision. If you do choose to buy a financial product, read the PDS, TMD

and obtain appropriate financial advice tailored towards your needs. Victoria Devine and She's On The Money are authorised representatives of MoneySherpa PTY LTD ABN 321 649 27708 AFSL 451 289. Thank you.