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

Explaining - Crisis Recovery insurance

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'

Case Study

Meet George: single again and working hard to re-establish his life after a relationship change. After a recent Family Law Court order, he lost most of his assets and a sizable chunk of his superannuation so he’s having to rebuild his life, a little faster than expected.

Apart from just dealing with the stress of a relationship breakdown, he's also dealing with a diagnosis of prostate cancer. The prospects for full recovery look good, but George still needs a plan to make sure his partner and stepdaughter are cared for and have certainty about his personal financial position too.

• He will need to continue to pay his rent and living expenses while he recovers and works through the uncertain length of rehabilitation after chemotherapy has finished.
• George’s Crisis Recovery insurance payout means he can choose to afford the cost of elective cancer treatment and doesn’t have to ‘wait for a year to see how it progresses’ and ‘wait for a bed in a public hospital to become available’.

His insurance benefit payment means he can continue to live in the same area where he feels settled and connected and continue to meet his usual living expenses. He can even afford to pay his sister to take 2 months off work to stay with him if he needs more help at home during treatments, while he focuses on getting better.

George has significant financial options available, because he chose to set up a Crisis Recovery insurance backup plan, just in case.

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 Australians 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

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