Sickness & Accident Insurance

Sickness and accident insurance, also known as income protection or income insurance, provides up to 75% of your salary should you suffer a sickness or accident and be unable to work for longer than the waiting period of the policy.

Did you know Income Protection insurance is the new and improved name for sickness and accident insurance? Essentially income protection insurance is very similar to the initial product called Sickness and accident insurance.

Let’s go back to the good old days of Sickness & Accident Insurance

Sickness & accident insurance policies used to offer you the following:

• Life Time benefits – if you had a sickness or accident and could never return to work, the insurance company would continue to pay 75% of your salary right up until you pass away!
• Variable waiting and benefit periods for sickness or accidents - you used to be able to tailor your insurance to meet your needs by choosing a shorter waiting period. For example, you used to have the option of choosing a shorter benefit period for accidents, and/or shorter or longer waiting & benefit periods for sicknesses.

Generally the sickness and accident products of the past were fairly simple. Though now you can add on a number of ‘bells & whistles’ to your policy such as bed confinement benefits, critical illness benefits or child care benefits.

As insurance companies generally used to offer longer benefit periods, they were quite expensive compared to the policies currently available due to the life expectancy rates at the time.

Types of sickness and accident insurance currently available today?

The fundamentals of sickness and accident insurance have not changed; it just goes by the more commonly known name of income protection insurance or income insurance. The waiting periods are generally not variable between sickness’ and accidents (however you can still add on the accident option*). Benefit periods have now generally been standardized to either 2, 5, to age 65 years or to age 70 years benefit periods. There are some variations on however these are normally the current options. However if you have a variation you are trying to achieve talk to one of our specialist insurance advisers to see if we can find you something to suit your needs!

The second type of sickness and accident insurance cover available is called accident insurance and still is to this day.

Accident insurance covers you for accidents only which keep you off work for longer than the waiting period. It then starts owing you 75% of your salary once the accident has kept you off work for longer than the waiting period. Accident Insurance has grown in popularity as most people only believe that accidents are the only things that will be happen to them.

Should you be looking for either a full sickness and accident insurance or only an accident insurance policy contact an xLife specialist insurance adviser on 1300 135 205.

Exclusive Offer! Call xLife on 1300 135 205 today and
save up to 20% on your first year’s income protection premium.

December 2009