life insurance

1. 16 September 2022

   How I money (2022)

   A follow-up to my 2019 “How I money”, showing how my wife and I actually structure our savings, investments, insurance, and spending three years on. Don’t treat this as a guide — it’s illustrative onl…

2. 18 February 2022

   Paid off the mortgage? Don’t cancel your income protection insurance just yet

   Lots of people reassess their insurance after repaying the mortgage and cancel their income protection. I often think that's a mistake. Mortgage-free years are usually when you build the wealth that f…

3. 31 May 2019

   You’ll never have the “right” amount of insurance (but don’t let that stop you)

   You'll never have the "right" amount of insurance, because you're dealing with uncertainty. You can only tell what you needed with hindsight or a crystal ball. For most people the best case is paying…

4. 12 November 2018

   Parents can help out their children by underwriting risks

   Parents help their kids in obvious ways — education, deposits on homes. But there's a subtler one worth naming: underwriting risks. A parent in a sound financial position can take the place of a traum…

5. 15 March 2018

   Insurance – why I prefer stepped premiums over level premiums

   As a general rule, I say "no" to level premiums for personal insurance. Your insurance needs should reduce over time, so if you select level premiums, you may end up locking yourself into unnecessary…

6. 19 June 2017

   Red flags to consider if you’ve received personal insurance advice

   Many insurance advisers provide terrific advice — but not always. Two red flags worth watching for: when the adviser has recommended the same level of life insurance cover for both you and your partne…

7. 13 April 2017

   Are you OVER-insured?

   Plenty of people are under-insured. But plenty are also over-insured — paying expensive premiums for cover they no longer need. Reducing cover is trickier than it sounds, and most advisers have financ…

8. 14 July 2016

   Mortgages are red herrings when it comes to level of life insurance cover

   Life insurance advice is almost cliche: if the client dies, they want the mortgage paid off. That's often the start and end of the conversation. But the mortgage is a red herring. The real question is…

9. 25 May 2016

   Not all types of insurance are equal

   I'm an advocate of many forms of insurance, but not all of it is equally useful. It tends to earn its keep against low-probability, high-impact events — things that would otherwise be financially cata…

10. 10 October 2015

    Insurance is a foundational risk management tool. But like any tool, it doesn’t cover all contingencies

    I'm a huge advocate of most forms of insurance — general insurance for the house, contents, and car; personal insurance for life, income, total and permanent disability, and trauma. It's a foundationa…

11. 1 July 2015

    What should you consider when determining how much insurance cover do you need?

    Working out how much life, TPD, and trauma cover you need is both simpler and more complicated than it looks. Two clients with identical objective circumstances can legitimately want different amounts…

12. 6 February 2015

    Do ALL people need life, trauma, TPD, or trauma insurance? No. Do MOST people need insurance?

    Do ALL people need life, trauma, total and permanent disability, or income protection insurance? No. Do MOST people need insurance? Yes. These policies are typically about making sure the people who d…

13. 15 December 2014

    What are the odds?

    If you're in your late twenties or thirties, the odds that you'll die in a given year are very low — less than 0.15% for men, less than 0.07% for women. Pretty good odds. But in a group of 300 friends…

14. 7 December 2014

    A will by itself is not an estate plan or succession strategy

    A will is only one piece of estate planning — and often a small one. Superannuation, jointly-owned property, life insurance nominations, and trust assets often bypass the will entirely. Plan the whole…