Summary
Today I’m speaking with Julia Druery, a mum of two, living on the Gold Coast who was studying to become a financial advisor before a tragic event hit her family back in 2016. Julia’s husband Kent suffered from an acquired brain injury which left him with several permanent disabilities and no longer able to work. Thankfully Kent had various insurances in place before the injury which helped to relieve the financial pressure of this life changing event.
Some of the topics we cover are:
- Julia shares the story of her husband Kent’s acquired brain injury. (08:54)
- What was the process of claiming insurance payments after the injury occurred? (12:03)
- What is trauma insurance and is it included in default super cover? (17:25)
- Why is lifestyle an important consideration when making insurance decisions? (27:16)
- How much does all this cover cost and is it really worth it? (30:32)
- How has Julia & Kent’s insurance cover impacted their lifestyle today? (35:01)
- Julia’s personal experience with debt recycling. (48:18)
Links
- Website – Who Moved My Goalposts
- Website – QARC – Queensland Aphasia Research Centre
Great work AFB. Really helpful and important for people to know. Thanks to Julia for sharing her story.
I had to deal with this about five years ago when a family member became sick and passed away from cancer.
It was very difficult and stressful to work out insurance claims, super, debts, Wills, medical authorities and everything else. Major lesson is get it sorted out early and share that most important info with a trusted family member and/or friend. Don’t leave it to the family to work it all out later.
Keep up the great work pal.
Thanks PB,
I’ve had a lot of people message me with similar stories. It can really happen to anyone.
Great podcast AFB, and thanks so much to Julia for sharing her story. As much as people like to think nothing bad will happen to them, it absolutely can and does happen to some people. You can be super fit and into Ironman events and still just get unlucky with some illness or other, and that’s you done financially unless you have the right insurance in place, which thankfully Julie and her husband did. As mentioned during the podcast there is a real sliding doors moment where if it had been her or if they hadn’t had insurance, instead of being pretty happily retired and absolutely fine financially they could have been in a very different place.
I remember you and I discussed it in our podcast as well, it’s just one of those things that for whatever reason Australians think they don’t need because of the whole “she’ll be right mate attitude” that we have over here.
I thought it might be useful to give another view on the cost of insurance because Julia mentioned some pretty high numbers that they were paying. When I was doing my post on insurance the rule of thumb I got told by financial planners was that to get yourself pretty well protected as a white collar worker it was about 4-6% of your wage. As an example for my wife and I to be protected and have all living expenses plus a bit more covered it’s currently costing us a bit less than $4k a year. That’s Life, TPD, Trauma, and Income Protection and would put us in a position where we’d be fine financially if something were to happen to either of us. Hopefully that might help make it a little more palatable financially to some of your listeners.
Great to have some other numbers here HIFIRE. I probably should have made that point in the pod that it won’t be that expensive for a lot of listeners
Hi AUssie HiFire,
Been trying to get my head around this and just read your article (thanks) and also a podcast from Glen James.
Both of you recommend professional advice over going through super.
Question I have, if you go through a financial advisor, do you have to pay the typical financial advice fee of circa $3-4k ?
Thanks
Hi Firebug, Great Podcast. One point that was missed was that if you are under 25 or have a super balance of less than 6K you will not have life insurance as part of your super. If you are in this situation you will need to opt-in. It was designed so that people with low balances and possible lost super in multiple accounts are not getting stung with paying for insurance. Also if you don’t contribute to super for 16 months your insurance within super can be cancelled too. It came across this years ago as my missus was a stay at home mum and her insurance was cancelled. They provided letter/s informing but this could be a trap for the unaware. There is more about this on the MoneySmart ASIC site under super.
Great catch Nat!
Wow thanks for doing this interview, I’m glad that I’ve taken care of that but I still a lot from their story and she reminded me that it’s not wasted money. I learned a few things also from the comments here!
Question: has anybody in this community ever recommended Financial Advisors? I know they are not cheap but if I’m going to pay for that I’d like to know they know what they’re doing.
Thanks again for sharing this content
I’m in Sydney
Great episode! I listened to Fire and Chill, then your episode, on insurances back to back and the messages couldn’t be more different! It was a great episode and your guest was really inspiring.