Most Common FAQ faq about hiv faq about PrEP faq about diabetes services

Crisis Recovery insurance means you can focus on getting better, without worrying about how you’re going to get by once you recover.

Crisis Recovery insurance (also called Critical Illness Trauma Recovery insurance) is designed to pay a specified lump sum (or in some cases installments) to you if you’re diagnosed with a specified serious illness or injury that's covered by the policy such as cancer, heart attack, stroke, and breast or prostate cancer.

Up until now, this was simply not possible for people with complex health conditions.

• Poor health can destroy wealth quickly. Hits to our health are often far worst than other financial losses because they often dry up our income-making capacity too.
• Today people often use it as part of a backup plan to fund their major medical expenses, reducing (or even paying off) debts and maintaining their lifestyle while they recover.
• Crisis Recovery insurance is a useful backup plan when you don't have access to savings or large sums of disposable cash when you may need it the most.

An uncomfortable reality

Today's rising cost of sophisticated medical treatments and pharmaceutical interventions means that having a health crisis now equates to having a financial crisis.  Money has become a potent treatment tool as advances in medicine.

This is where Crisis Recovery insurance can be a powerful safety net.

Depending upon the level of cover you choose, it can even allow you to make permanent lifestyle changes like not needing to return to work full time.

Key Terms to know

• The benefit amount is the amount the policy covers you for as chosen by you.
• The defined conditions (listed in the PDS) are the specified conditions the policy is designed to pay out for.

Practically speaking - 'remove the worry of paying bills while you recover from a serious condition'

Why you may need Crisis Recovery insurance

Crisis Recovery Illness insurance (aka Trauma Recovery insurance) is especially important for single people who may not have dependable family support, for people with dependents or who might have a non-working partner.

• Most Australian's just don’t have ready access to at least 6 months of emergency savings at hand that can continue to pay all their debts and normal living expenses.
• Add to this the increased financial burden of unexpected medical and rehabilitation costs and a medical crisis can quickly become a financial crisis too.

It’s especially relevant for:

• Singles with low family support
• Young families with large debt obligations and low salable asset values
• People who are the major income earning in a relationship
• People with low emergency savings at hand

Take a moment to consider how much immediate cash reserves you have on hand today to put towards paying for a serious medical issue (particularly where you may need to stop work due to serious medical trauma or injury).

• What's your realistic plan to cope with the mortgage repayment or the weekly rental, the car loan and credit card repayments and everyday expenses - on top of sudden medical costs for treatments and rehabilitation?

Real Life Statistics

• An estimated 145,000 new cases of cancer will be diagnosed in Australia this year, with that number likely to rise to 150,000 in 2020.^{Cancer Council – Facts and Figures}
• Almost half a million people are hospitalised each year as a result of injury, and a further 12,000 people die due to injury. ^{Australian Institute of Health and Welfare – Injury, June 2017}

The average lifetime Cancer Management¹ costs for people 15 years and over are:

• $95,460 for head, neck and thyroid cancers
• $74,600 for lung cancer
• $51,460 for bowel cancer
• $36,800 for prostate cancer
• $36,040 for breast cancer
• $20,360 for melanoma skin cancer

Data source 1 Zurich, the Cost of Care whitepaper, pp.11 – 12

Do I have to answer questions in front of my partner if I don't want to?

Do I have to fill in the insurance application paperwork myself?

Do I have to pay a full years premium at a time?

Do I have to use a Tele Underwriter if I’m comfortable answering my personal health questions with my Adviser?

Do I need to have a routine blood test if I apply for insurance and use PrEP?

No, not always. It can also depend upon the amount of cover you seek. If you have recent copies of your blood work from your GP (or clinic), we’ll usually be able to use them to avoid a blood test etc. Either way, we’ll keep you informed of what the next steps may be for your personal circumstances.

Do life insurance companies discriminate?

Do people have to know that I have received Life Insurance pre-assessment services from unusualrisk.com.au?

Will they ask about monogamist relationships and unprotected sex?

Yes. Everyone gets asked the same question about recreational drugs

During a life insurance application, will you ask me if I'm Gay?

No.

Will they ask me if I'm HIV positive?

During a life insurance application, will you ask me if I'm Bisexual?

What's the difference between Life Insurance and Life Insurance products?

How do I get in contact with unusualrisks.com.au?

How do I prepare for an insurance application with unusualrisks.com.au?

How does a person's weight affect a life insurance application?

A person’s weight is an important factor in a life insurance assessment. A Life Insurance company will use a Body Mass Index (‘BMI’) as a key measurement of general good health in insurance underwriting.

• Simply put, an overweight person usually pays higher insurance premiums than a person at a healthy weight, and an obese person will have higher premiums than an overweight person.
• Usually a BMI of up to 35 is considered typical. Once a person’s BMI reaches 39 or more, a medical exam will be required together with an MBA20 and HbA1c blood test.

BMI is less of a health issue at older ages whereas the same elevated BMI level may be more concerning at a younger age.

Life Insurance is a complex area with no second chance to fix a mistake

Once you have a Life Insurance policy in force, it can't be taken away from you. But of course, there's the problem of getting one in the first place...

Life Insurance is an 'underwritten financial product'. This means that levels of risk are often measured by insurance underwriters in 'likelihoods' and '% of chance'. Until recently, for HIV research, insurance underwriters had limited data to make predictions from so they simply refused to offer Life Insurance in circumstances where people were diagnosed with HIV.

Why you need a specialist adviser from Unusualrisks.com.au

When you have a pre-existing medical condition, getting high-quality Life Insurance requires the expertise of a specialty Risk Insurance Adviser because of 4 key reasons;

• The different medical underwriting requirements are complex
• The assessment criteria change constantly 
• Not all insurance providers are able to work with pre-existing medical conditions (but they don't tell you that up front so the resulting formal 'application declined' goes on your permanent record)
• We specialise in navigating through this complex area

4 Incredibly important things you need to know about life insurance

Here are 4 significant differences that are often overlooked when setting up specialty life insurance.

• Once a Life Insurance policy is in force, it's considered to be 'non-cancellable' by the insurance provider (as long as you continue to pay the premiums)
• It's automatically renewed each year without any further assessment, for the life of the product (regardless of any changes in your health, occupation or personal situation)
• You may have the option to select level premiums for the life of the product. This can mean savings of thousands of dollars over the life of the product. The earlier this is done, the greater the savings that can be achieved.
• You may be able to pay the premiums from your superannuation fund balance. When done in combination with level premiums, this can be a very cost-effective strategy for most people.

When taking time means good value to you

These are also 4 reasons why Life Insurance companies spend a lot of time in the initial assessment of the policy — because once you have a policy, it can't be taken away from you. So, now you can see the value in having a non-cancellable Life Insurance policy that's right for you.

The typical scenario

Sadly, we come across situations where people have already applied for life insurance only to be refused based upon their lifestyle and their medical conditions.

• Every time they apply for insurance again, (any type of insurance covered by the Duty of Disclosure laws) they are legally required to disclose all past insurance refusals otherwise an insurance company can refuse a claim based upon non-disclosure.
• If they apply for insurance again, they are then legally required to disclose past insurance refusals. This often becomes a real cycle of pain.

Our anonymous pre-assessment process prevents this damage from happening.

Why the standard life insurance application form works against you when you have specialty needs

If you're health-conscious, eat and exercise well, maintain your weight and have an active lifestyle, this is important information that should also be taken into consideration by a life insurance underwriter. But with a standard application form, none of this is taken into account, so the result is almost always an automatic 'no'.

The disturbing reality is that the safety of your data is not safe when you don't use a specialist like Unusual Risks

One of the common practices for general advisers and employed advisers is to simply 'send your health information around to different insurance companies' in the hope that one of them might be interested and provide feedback on whether they can help. The ugly inside truth is that many of the risk insurers don't admit they don't both or provide helpful feedback because of vested interests and concerns over commercial intelligence.

• Unless you're a specialist adviser, you don't have the time to research and stay on top of the changes that occur on a monthly basis.

So now you can see why you need the specialist team at unusualrisks.com.au to get you the result safely, efficiently and confidentially.

Everything we do is all about giving you the best chance of success without the risk

At Unusual Risks, we understand the underwriting processes and the medical requirements that insurers need to work with. We can present you in the most favourable light so that your chances of success are the highest.

• We use technology to help us anonymously pre-assess your medical position so that potential difficulties can be dealt with — without the need to identify you and create a permanent record that might influence a future application.

In reality, someone living with HIV or diabetes is still more likely to be turned down for life insurance by mainstream insurers than someone who doesn't have these conditions. If you are offered cover, you'll pay about the same premium as other people with pre-existing conditions such as cancer, certain kinds of heart conditions, or smokers.

Our anonymous pre-assessment processgives you the absolute best chance of success.

How we do it?

• We start by providing up-to-date, high-quality relevant information about what's now possible for people living with diabetes or HIV.
• Then we provide an anonymous online pre-assessment service so that people can quickly find out if their medical condition is one we can work with.
• Finally, we check your medical information with you to confirm if you were to make a formal application for life insurances, you'd have a very significant chance of success.

10 Good reasons to choose Unusual Risks as your specialty risk adviser

1. You control the conversation
2. Easy online pre-Assessment
3. The ability to be pre-Assessed anonymously
4. The ability to complete personal and private questionnaires securely online
5. Our expertise and deep understanding of HIV and diabetes issues
6. Our skill at matching the right clients' health profiles to the right insurance providers
7. Our ability to talk about anything without judgment or embarrassment
8. Our No-surprises No-BS Guarantee
9. All our practices, procedures and interactions with our clients are Trauma Informed
10. Your choice of communication method: Video-to-Video, phone-to-phone or face-to-face (or just old-school email).

Tell us how we can best work with you, and we'll make that happen.

How long does the formal Life Insurance application take?

About 20 – 30 minutes depending upon the level of detail needed. But you can help and collect the results of your blood work ahead of time, which will speed up the process.  And by authorising us to use that information in a formal application, the application process becomes super fast.

How long does it take for you to get all the medical reports collected?