The Great Insurance Rort of 2022

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Forums › Finance and wealth management › The Great Insurance Rort of 2022

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#2935810 29-Jun-2022 10:12

sen8or:
My parents have recently made the decision to stop southern cross after about 50 years due to the cost ($18k for both), but in the last 20 or so years, they would certainly be on the worthwhile side of things (cardiologist interventions, knees replaced, various other procedures). With our family history of heart issues, I'm not prepared to gamble on the public system but accept that this is a luxury that others can't or don't have.

As for the public system, mixed results from that. Brother with throat cancer, very good treatment before and after surgery (and great treatment whilst in hospital). Mother in law, dementia and breast cancer, still waiting for scan results weeks after initial diagnosis to see scope of cancer and what treatment options are available etc.

Tell them to call Southern Cross and say they can’t afford it any more and will cancel if they don’t find a much cheaper option. Then they start talking. I was offered a number of options that more than halved the premiums from around 8k to 4k per annum. Wish I’d known this much earlier. Specialists are included as are their testing procedures. If you have a heart attack you are rushed to public hospital anyway and dealt with there. Knees and hips aren’t life threatening and paying $4k up front is very little to deal with those IF they are ever needed.

The thing that irked me was when they sent the proposals by email for comparison they were all squeezed onto one sheet in columns portrait, with a font size so minute that even a magnifying glass couldn’t read it.

alasta

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#2935817 29-Jun-2022 10:45

Wow, it sounds like my new Southern Cross rate of $1700 per year isn't that bad after all! I recently turned 40 and have made some claims in the last couple of years so I guess that doesn't help.

PolicyGuy

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#2935827 29-Jun-2022 11:15

alasta:

Wow, it sounds like my new Southern Cross rate of $1700 per year isn't that bad after all! I recently turned 40 and have made some claims in the last couple of years so I guess that doesn't help.

There's your answer.

Try turning seventy and see what that does to your premiums - $7000 p.a. for specialist & hospital cover only

alasta

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#2935835 29-Jun-2022 11:25

I guess I'll have to try to avoid getting any older! 😆

Lias

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#2935846 29-Jun-2022 11:56

alasta:

Wow, it sounds like my new Southern Cross rate of $1700 per year isn't that bad after all! I recently turned 40 and have made some claims in the last couple of years so I guess that doesn't help.

Wellbeing Two for period 1 March 2022 to 31 March 2022
$436.75

Yeah $1700 sounds great :-)

*edit* That's for 2 adults, 2 kids and on a company discount scheme. I do miss my old employer who covered the entire family with the base package and I only had to pay for the upgrade.

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Geektastic

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#2935852 29-Jun-2022 12:16

Having already had significant heart issues, health and life insurance for me are tantamount to impossible to get (some will offer but at astronomical premiums excluding heart related events).

Other insurance costs increase for other reasons - the quaint Fire Service Levy has gone up, for example. I object to paying for the fire service in this way because it means only those with insurance are paying yet the fire service will not refuse to turn up if you are not insured. (A long time ago, they used to do that in London. You can still see on old buildings the plaques which set out which fire insurance company the owner used - the insurers often had their own fire brigades!)

Fire services should be paid out of general taxation, as should ambulances, police and coast guard.

sen8or

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#2935954 29-Jun-2022 13:54

Geektastic:

Fire services should be paid out of general taxation, as should ambulances, police and coast guard.

It amazes me that our ambulances and staff aren't fully funded by Govt, would be 1000% better use of taxpayer money than any political party's "pet project of the day" in which millions are spent on achieving very little...

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networkn

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#2935967 29-Jun-2022 14:22

Something that really upset us recently after having been with the same insurer for most our adult lives, is that where they used to cover us for no-fault claims (like if someone keyed your car), they no longer cover that without you being able to a) provide details of the person who did it, and b) they will admit full liability for it.

What is frustrating, is that twice it's happened. Once about 5 years ago, and recently to my wife car, and they are treating the claim differently. I am arguing that it's a fundamental and material change to our policy and we should have been notified. I've asked for a formal review, but I think they are going to hard line it and these holes who keyed my wife car will cost us about $700.

lxsw20

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#2935975 29-Jun-2022 14:33

sen8or:

It amazes me that our ambulances and staff aren't fully funded by Govt.

They don't want to be govt owned - well St John doesn't anyway.

invisibleman18

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#2936017 29-Jun-2022 15:29

Lias:

Wellbeing Two for period 1 March 2022 to 31 March 2022
$436.75

I have Wellbeing One (which I think is slightly less cover than Two), for just myself (male aged 35) part subsidised by work (government department) and pay $26.68 per fortnight (comes out with each pay) which equates to $693.68 across a year which seems pretty reasonable.

Whilst it's relatively cheap and not very noticeable when it's paid fortnightly I figure I'll just keep it in case something serious comes up and I can go private quicker than waiting on the public list. I also play a lot of sport so assume if I do an ACL or something I can get it sorted more quickly privately too.

Not sure how connected the health and travel insurance arms are but have had a couple of good prior experiences with SC when having to make a travel insurance claim.

Car insurance is with Westpac, also on a government employee discount and seems to be the cheapest I can find, as well as being a higher "agreed value" than any other quote will offer. Car is getting a bit old now (2004) so would almost like it to get written off so I can get paid out that amount which I wouldn't get by selling or trading in.

Edit: Altered post as I misread that as your premium for the year. Now see it's for one month.

tripper1000

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#2936041 29-Jun-2022 16:16

The (re) insurance world is being hammered at the moment & are passing on costs - up to $36 billion dollars related Ukraine.

Generally (re) insurance costs world-wide have shot up which affects things locally. As well as a bunch of natural disasters (here, Australia and else where), the insurance world has been rocked by the Russian invasion. There are enormous volumes of enormous claims coming out of Ukraine where companies didn't have an "except acts of war" clause in their policies. There are also massive insurance claims ($10 billion) on ~400 leased passenger jets in Russian that Russia is not returning to the owners.

Add to this that sanctions have cut insurance company revenue (they can no longer accept business from Russia), and the losses are being shared over a smaller customer base.

On related a side note, shipping/business insurance has spiked due to a lot of insurance claims for lost/unpaid cargo shipments related to Ukraine, Russia & the numerous countries whose economies are collapsing (Turkey, Pakistan, Sir Lanka etc).

With regard to health insurance, companies only want low-risk customers which means old people are unwelcome and the system is therefore a fundamentally flawed concept.

PolicyGuy

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#2936044 29-Jun-2022 16:23

lxsw20:

sen8or:

It amazes me that our ambulances and staff aren't fully funded by Govt.

They don't want to be govt owned - well St John doesn't anyway.

They don't want to be government owned but they do want government (Health and ACC) money. Hmm.

If I was Minister of Health - fortunately this will never be the case - I would write to St John and to Wellington Free Ambulance and tell them that

As from April 1st next year, there will be no Government money for their organisations
The Government will buy their ambulance operating businesses from them, either for $1 and the government will take over all their assets and liabilities, or at valuation but all the liabilities stay with the vendor - they can pick which option
Ambulance operations will be folded into Fire & Emergency NZ, whose budget will be adjusted upwards appropriately.
All ambulance staff other than management will be offered positions with FENZ under at least the same terms and conditions
FENZ will offer St John & WFA two-year management contracts to run their respective bits of the system under the governance of FENZ.
After the two-year integration period, St John & WFA management staff will be offered the opportunity to apply for equivalent positions in the new integrated FENZ structure.
The 'new' FENZ would be required to co-locate its control and dispatch operations with Police to provide an integrated Emergency First Response capability

I would also cease insurance funding for FENZ, fully funding it from taxes (general revenue and maybe rates) and re-establish it as a business unit of NEMA (the National Emergency Management Agency, formerly known as the Ministry for CDEM). NEMA might have to be busted out into a full Ministry again, the merged NEMA + FENZ organisation would be too large to fit in under DPMC.

networkn

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#2936045 29-Jun-2022 16:24

tripper1000:

The (re) insurance world is being hammered at the moment & are passing on costs - up to $36 billion dollars related Ukraine.

Almost every policy I've ever seen has Acts or War, Acts of Terrorism and Acts of War excluded.

Where did you get information about 36B for Ukraine Insurance payouts?

Wheelbarrow01

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#2936259 29-Jun-2022 22:57

Geektastic:

Fire services should be paid out of general taxation, as should ambulances, police and coast guard.

Yes it grinds my gears that I have to pay the fire service levy on my boat insurance, yet realistically the most likely time for it to catch fire is while in use on the water - where FENZ will not be able to assist. If it were to catch fire on the road, then it would be hooked to my car so the car's fire levy covers it. If it explodes at home, then my house levy covers it.

I pay extra for a Coastguard membership to help keep me and my boat safe on the water. I think it's disgusting that out of the Coastguard's operating expenses of $26.1 million last financial year, the government chipped in just $3.4 million. Those expenses would have been a lot higher had volunteers not donated over 290,000 hours of their time.

It's also annoying that there's no way for Joe Public to claim back the fuel excise tax on petrol that is consumed on the water and not the road (although commercial boat operators can claim it - even if their boats are trailered to/from the water). I'd rather pay that money direct to Coastguard than have it go towards roads.

tripper1000

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#2936418 30-Jun-2022 11:43

networkn: Where did you get information about 36B for Ukraine Insurance payouts?

https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/sp-global-says-russia-ukraine-insurance-losses-could-reach-35-billion-2022-03-31/

It is cited by numerous sites on the web but ultimately is sourced from a S&P estimate report.

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