We find ourselves in an unexpected global pandemic with the Coronavirus (Covid – 19) increasingly impacting us globally and here in Australia. You may have many questions around Coronavirus and your financial wellbeing. Have you considered the impact the Coronavirus may have on your Life Insurance policies?
Life Insurance includes having insurance cover for Total and Permanent Disability (TPD), Income Protection and/or Death Cover. If you’ve got life insurance, you may be asking whether or not you will be covered by Coronavirus.
It is more important than ever to understand your insurance policy and entitlements you have when making any life insurance claim.
We suggest making sure to check and find out if your current Life Insurance policy cover you in the following two circumstances:
1. Type of Disability or Injury – Generally, insurance policies will cover your illness or injury for most conditions. They may, however, have a list of conditions they may not cover as part of your life insurance policy. For example, some insurance policies may not cover rare conditions or virus’ as part of the cover. We strongly suggest you check whether Coronavirus is covered as part of your TPD, Income Protection or Death Insurance Cover.
2. Travelling Overseas – Now depending on your Life Insurance Cover, you may not be entitled to either TPD, Income Protection or Death Cover if your injury or illness occurred overseas, ie many people developed the symptoms of Coronavirus overseas. Therefore, if your life insurance has exclusions for overseas travel to an affected region and you choose to travel to that region, if you had the injury or illness overseas then you will not be entitled to any benefits. Again, this is very important to check and confirm whether or not you are covered as per your life insurance policy.
3. Your Profession – This isn’t related to coronavirus, but we thought this will be an important topic to discuss. Most people have life insurance cover which includes TPD, Income Protection and Death Cover as part of Group Claims. This means that if you are employed and receiving superannuation then the chances are you have automatic default life insurance cover. However, what many people don’t realise is that although they have life insurance cover, their policy may have listed their profession as “High Risk” for which they will not cover those professions.
An example maybe farmers, factory workers, truck driver etc. Generally, insurer’s have a list of the profession which they believe will most likely be injured or ill (ie; repetitive work) and therefore exclude those professions as “High Risk”. Thus if you have doubts if your profession is considered High Risk then we strongly suggest to contact your insurer and find out immediately.
We hope this guide will help you understand the impact of Coronavirus on your current Life Insurance.
Watch our video below where our Principal Solicitor gives an update on Life Insurance amidst the Covid 19 crisis.
Feeling a little overwhelmed with all the Coronavirus related insurance questions? It’s very important to check your policy and find out what you are covered for. Just drop us a line and our trusted lawyer will help answer your questions.
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