Trauma Cover – the best safety net
When we meet with clients we work to help them understand scenarios where they would use the different insurance covers. When everything is going well it can be hard to imagine life any other way. We spoke to a Plus4 client about her experience with trauma insurance to give a real-life example of the difference it can make.
In November 2015 Jess and her husband Brian decided to get in touch with Mike Tonks at Plus4 to review their personal insurance. “Brian had met Mike through setting up insurance for the business,” explains Jess. “He was impressed with how thorough Mike was, so thought he might be able to help us with our personal insurance as well.”Jess and Brian found Mike good to work with and transferred their personal insurance to Plus4. “I really felt like he wasn’t trying to sell to us but was looking at our situation and thinking about which types of insurance would help us. He offered different options, and described what each was there for, and gave examples of how different events could play out for us, which gave us a really clear picture,” says Jess. As part of the review, Jess and Brian got $150,000 of trauma cover, which included a three month stand down after getting the cover in place. In July 2016, four months after the stand down ended, Jess, aged 43 years old, was diagnosed with breast cancer. The cancer was aggressive but was treatable with chemotherapy, which meant a gruelling year and a half of treatment lay ahead. Jess sat down with a friend and went through everything she would need, including finding out what insurance she had and how it could be used. Living in Queenstown, if Jess used the public system for her treatment she would have to travel back and forth from the hospital in Dunedin for treatment, which was a seven-hour round trip. Having health insurance meant she could choose where to have her treatment, and so she chose to attend a clinic in Christchurch. The trip by plane was much shorter, which meant she could fly to Christchurch, have the treatment and fly home again in time to be with the children, aged seven and nine, after school. So what did Jess and Brian use the trauma cover for?
Flights – giving her the freedom to choose where to have treatment, and minimise disruption to the children’s lives
Hotels – the aftermath of treatment sessions is unpleasant and unpredictable, and while there was family to stay with in Christchurch when she did have to stay overnight, the privacy of staying in a hotel made Jess more comfortable
Food – being able to afford quality pre-prepared food for the family took a huge burden off Jess and Brian in a hard time
A cleaner and gardener – Jess was unable to use her arm for a while
A getaway for the family
Keeping the family financially afloat as Jess took a year off work
“While it was great to know we had the money coming, we weren’t initially sure how we would use it,” Jess remembers. “Some of these things were real luxuries, and some of them just allowed us to hunker down and work on me getting well.”And while it was a significant sum, Jess says they were happy they had as much cover as they did as the expenses added up quickly. “Mike explained it was the best safety net you could have, and I am so glad we listened to the experts because the premium was very little considering the huge impact it made when we needed to claim,” she explains. For Jess and Brian, having trauma cover took pressure off the family at a time when things were extremely unsettled, and they were facing a large unknown. If you want to review your cover or talk to an adviser about trauma cover, get in touch.