Insurance know-how for every age and stage

We call this life stage starting out, but you probably think of it as the fun and freedom years. This phase is all about study, training, or kicking off your career. You’re less likely to have kids or own a home, but you might have a car and a few other valuable possessions that could be accidentally damaged, lost or stolen.

Here are three types of insurance you might want to consider.

If you’re trying to save, or pay off a student loan, it can be tempting to flag contents insurance. But ask yourself this. Could you handle the financial hit of having to replace your laptop if you lost it? What if your BBQ set fire to the neighbour’s outdoor furniture set? Could you afford to replace these? 

Contents insurance doesn’t just help replace or repair the items that you own. Depending on the type of cover, it might also cover accidental damage to someone else’s things too.

Beware the carpark fender bender or accidentally reversing into your neighbour’s new, fancy car. The cost to repair a car can come as an unexpected expense. So, whether you’re running around in your first beater, or you’re high rolling it in something newer, choose from basic (Third Party Fire and Theft, or Third Party Only) through to comprehensive insurance.

We’re not trying to go all doom and gloom on you, but things can go wrong, even when you’re young. If you suddenly had to stop work due to an unexpected illness, such as cancer, could you cover your day-to-day expenses? With life and income insurance, you might be able to get cover for life insurance, critical illness insurance, and/or income protection insurance, depending on what suits your needs and your budget.

This is when insurance can really escalate in importance. You might be climbing the career ladder, own a home and maybe have dependents. Which means, you'd have a lot more that needs protecting.

So here’s what you might want to consider.

You may have some cover in place from your starting-out years, but since then your family, responsibilities and debt might have grown. You might want to think about how you’d cover bills, home loans and childcare if your income stream or ability to look after your dependents was impacted. Protecting your income, life and lifestyle could help keep you and your loved ones afloat should the unexpected happen. 

A major weather event can cause expensive and disruptive damage to your home, while a gradual leak could cause unseen damage over time. Not many of us could afford to repair or rebuild out of our own pocket. That’s why insuring your home is important. 

Once you own a home, you might find you accrue more things, so this could be a good time to review your contents cover as well. 

At this point you might be closer to paying off your home loan. Plus, if you have kids getting older, it’s natural to start thinking about the next phase – maybe travel, or more time with whānau and friends could be on the horizon. Insurance is still important, but a little rejig might be required to keep the balance right.

Maybe you don’t require the same amount of life or income cover if you’ve cleared your mortgage (in which case, congratulations!).

If you’ve made improvements to your house, or your art collection has expanded, then you might want to look at increasing your level of contents or house insurance to ensure you’d be covered if a fire or natural disaster were to happen. 

Businesses come in all shapes and sizes, so business insurance does too. 

Here are some things to think about, depending on how your business operates: 

• If you’re a consultancy services business, your focus might be on insuring against potential liability arising from the advice you give to clients.
• If you’re a manufacturing business, you may need to think about insuring your plant and stock against production disruptions, or issues arising from malfunction or contamination. 
• If you’re a tradie, you may want to insure your tools and your vehicle. 
• You may also consider your ability to continue earning by having income protection in case something happens to you and you can’t work. 

Our trusted insurance partners recommend solutions that are specifically designed to protect you and your business from insurable events. Ready to review yours?