That Home Loan Hub
Welcome to That Home Loan Hub, your ultimate guide to mastering the world of home loans and property. I'm Zebunisso Alimova, here to simplify the complexities of real estate and provide you with expert insights and the latest trends.
Whether you're a first-time homebuyer, an experienced investor, or simply curious about the property market, this podcast is for you. Join me each week as we unlock the secrets to property success and help you make informed decisions. Let's dive into the world of property together!
That Home Loan Hub
The $95 Million Insurance Surge: What You Need to Know
Money well spent or down the drain? That's the question many Kiwis ask about their insurance premiums. The answer becomes crystal clear when you learn that insurance companies are paying out a staggering $95 million MORE each year than the year before. Not just $95 million total—but $95 million additional dollars annually.
While traditional claims for cancer, heart attacks, and strokes continue to represent significant portions of these payouts, mental health has emerged as a major contributor to this dramatic increase. One insurance company alone paid approximately $25 million in mental health-related claims last year, with $8 million specifically for suicide-related life insurance claims. These sobering statistics reflect the perfect storm of pressures facing New Zealanders: skyrocketing living costs, employment uncertainty, and the constant bombardment of stressful news in our digital era.
We share real stories that drive home the importance of coverage—like the young father who finally decided to "be more responsible" and get insured, only to have his partner unexpectedly need two specialist appointments shortly after securing coverage. Or the woman who lost her mother to cancer and wanted protection for her own family, never expecting she'd soon face health challenges herself. These aren't isolated incidents; they're reminders of life's unpredictability and the peace of mind that comes from proper financial protection.
The big takeaway? Insurance companies DO pay claims—one insurer alone paid out over $829 million last year. The key is honesty in your application. We can help customize coverage to fit your budget, pulling different levers to find the right balance between protection and affordability. Reach out to us today to discuss your options and join our mailing list for information about our upcoming webinar on October 15th. Your future self might thank you more than you can imagine.
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Hello and welcome back to that home loan hub. Hi Rebecca. Hi. I break into my singing every now and then.
SPEAKER_00:Hey, mix it up a little bit.
SPEAKER_01:Just to spice things up. Awesome. What are we talking about today?
SPEAKER_00:Rising claims. What's rising claims? So every year, on average, insurance companies are paying out minimum 95 million more than the year before.
SPEAKER_01:95 million more. So not just 95 million. It's 95 million more. Yeah. Whoa. Okay. What are we claiming for?
SPEAKER_00:Uh all sorts of things. I mean, the big ones are what we've talked about before, the cancers, the heart attack, strokes, but a big one that's coming through more recently is mental health. Mental health. I think last year one insurance company alone paid out about 20, I want to say what was about 25 million on mental health claims. Wow. What does it cover? So it was a range of things. Um, so some of it was on like their income protection, mortgage protection. So they were put off work for all sorts of things, depression, even stress-related things. They're put off work and they've been paying out like a monthly amount for God knows how long for some of them. Wow. Um, but then there's also a portion, I think one of the insurers I was reading about eight million, and this is just one insurer, eight million of their claims were suicide related. Wow. So life insurance claims for suicide.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Which is insane, like mind-boggling, right? Like we know mental health is getting worse. Well, actually, no, we know that people are talking about it more.
SPEAKER_01:Um but I think it is getting worse. Like, I know there's so many contributing factors to it, you know, the state of the economy right now, the living um costs rising, it's getting more expensive for people to put food on the table and keep electricity on, but also um the stress that comes with the digital era that we live in and everything that we get bombarded with, right? There's war here, there's strikes there, it gets too much.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. And then there's the employment at the moment, like you know, the amount of redundancies that you read about.
SPEAKER_01:The companies, the amount of companies that are going under completely, yeah. And gone into liquidation overnight, you know, and that of course leads on to people losing their jobs. Like I've just read about an Auckland um transport agency up north. Uh they went into liquidation, 85 people lost their jobs overnight. You know, and this company has been around for 17 years. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And overnight too, like not having like how much notice did they really have, right? Zero. Exactly. They find out, like they wake up the next morning and they've lost their job. They've they've not been able to plan for it or anything. You can just imagine the stress. Like your mind just yeah, like if even just thinking about it, you'd completely freak out.
SPEAKER_01:Like it's yeah. Wow. So that's crazy.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Okay. So I think it comes back to what we've talked about in previous ones, and that is the whole um trust and them paying claims. So we can say they do pay claims.
SPEAKER_01:If you guys missed out on the episode that Rebecca and I did on um trust and insurance companies and whether we trust insurance companies to be paying out when we need it, um, it's a really good episode to have, you know, that it they do pay. They do pay if you haven't lied on your application. Let's be upfront, right? If you lie, you don't get paid. Um I'm just I'm just using the language I'll use with my children. If you lie to me, you're not gonna get that um coin, you know, to buy a lollip. But um same applies for insurances. Look, guys, if you genuinely forgotten to include something, there's always a bit of a gray area. But if you um, you know, premeditated to lie about consistent headaches that you've been having or, you know, going to the doctor for it, or etc., insurance company will find out eventually that you have misled them and that you got covered where you shouldn't have got the cover. And therefore they're not going to pay out.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But yeah, like you said, if you're truthful up front and you disclose everything possible, and like if you're worried about disclosing, they can request medical records, they can get the information. If there's something you're worried about forgetting, there are ways around it. Um, but if you've uh as an example, I think I mentioned earlier, maybe just between us, I don't know if it was on a podcast, but one insurance company paid like over$829 million last year in claims. So they're definitely paying.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. But that's um incredible to know that people can claim for all sorts of different things and that insurance has pockets to pay it out from. My worry would be like, how do you know which insurance company has those dip pockets and or doesn't? What information do we provide our clients with?
SPEAKER_00:So a big thing there will be when we talk about their financial strength rating. So pause and standards or any of those where they talk about if they've got an A financial strength rating or a B or a C. We're not going to be recommending ones with low financial strength ratings anyway. We don't deal with those ones anyway. Um, and then we also can provide the claim stats. We can show in previous years.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:How well, uh, you know, how much they've paid out and what they've paid out on, if there's something in particular, a type of product that you're interested in, but you want to know if it is something that they do pay out on consistently, we can provide all of that.
SPEAKER_01:And that's um, I think that's really important for people to know because again, that builds on their trust that um they can trust who they're paying money to. Because the last thing you want again, and the same for us, we don't want you to be paying money into the void and not get anything back when you really need to, because that's the whole point of insurance is to get something back for it when you truly need it.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. I think the thing with that is like we as we've talked about before, knowing that your money isn't going to waste if something major happens. Because especially if you you know, if you've got a very limited income and you're still finding enough money every month, every week, whatever, to pay that premium. And it's a struggle, but you know that you have to do it because in the long run, if something happens, you or your family won't be able to survive. Knowing that the insurance companies do actually pay out makes it worth it, right? Makes it makes that little bit of struggle or the less coffees a week or whatever it is to be able to afford that premium worth it.
SPEAKER_01:And you know, it's interesting because some of the clients I'm dealing with, they don't have insurance and they can afford it. They can. Yeah. They just don't want to, they just don't want to think about it, you know. And one of the clients recently, he was really cute, he said to me, Okay, I guess I have to start being more responsible. And he's got like two kids. And I'm like, dude, you absolutely have to be more responsible, you know. And we managed to put a cover in place for him after a lot of like, but it took several conversations with a previous insurance advisor, then with me, then you know, again and again and again, to reinforce that message that you've got the money for it. You need to. And and another one recently that we've placed a cover for someone, and out of blue, they had two specialist appointments, you know, and there were two different things that had gone wrong in their life just after we placed the cover. And again, young couple, you know, one child, and it came out of blue for them. They didn't take cover thinking, oh, something's gonna happen and we're gonna make a claim. Not at all. It was mainly due to their experiences because this young woman, she lost her mom um, you know, to cancer, and she was like, I don't want, you know, if something happens to me, I want my family to be looked after. So for her to go to the specialist and discover two different things that are wrong with her now and having that cover to pay for those specialist visits, I think that's important. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:And that's exactly why she wanted it, right?
SPEAKER_01:So yeah, case in point. Yeah, case in point. But yeah, and like that's the thing, right? Reach out to a financial advisor, insurance advisor like us. We will be able to talk you through how much it costs. And then you can, you know, play with that cover. I usually call it my McDonald's combo. There's a combo that you can get, but then there's also add-ons that you can put in or things to take away from it to make it cheaper. So we can work with you. It's not like you have to get this particular cover and it costs this amount of money. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's very um, we can pull different levers and we can play with that system to come to a point where we're both happy with our recommendations and with what you need. Absolutely. Awesome. Um, for those that are looking forward to our podcast, thank you for um reaching out and asking us about when it's gonna be. Uh, the date is on 15th of October. Something like that. But um, if you're not on our mailing list, please reach out to us. We'll put you on our mailing list so you know about the podcast that are um the webinars that are coming up. Um but you can also always find us on YouTube and everywhere else that you normally listen to the things. So um, thank you so much for joining in. Today we talked about the rising claims. Thank you so much. Thanks, Rebecca. Thank you. Bye.
