Video: Direct Insurance vs. Adviser Part 1
Read the transcript below:
Hi! It’s Mohamed Said here. Today I would like to talk to you about buying insurance from the direct insurance like you see on TV or coming to a financial adviser like myself and getting insurance from an adviser.
First of all, they have some benefits in getting insurance via the direct insurance that you see on TV. First things first, the process is simply, easy. Just phone them up, provide some basic information and details and they’ll give you a quote straight away on the phone and you can sign up then and there.
I suppose, therein lies the problem. In life, nothing is as simple as just phoning up and getting an insurance cover. Yes, it might work for your car but for your personal life insurance where your family and yourself are the beneficiaries of any insurance, you don’t want to take that risk where you’re just buying, you’re just getting a default insurance or just insurance off the shelf.
You do want to come and get some personal advice. This is where a financial advisor will sit with you. I’ll usually sit with my clients and discuss what their insurance needs are, how much insurance do you require. Do you need to pay off any of your outstanding debts? Do you have a large mortgage? Do you have children? Did you want to leave some money aside for them when something happens?
What about income protection? Do you know how much cover you need? Is it covering your whole income? Is it only going to pay you for two years or you’re going to get long-term income protection cover?
This is where a financial advisor will usually sit with you and assess your exact needs and then we will go forward and launch an application form. This is where we really want to understand where your medical histories, what sicknesses and illnesses you had because then we can tailor this insurance to you.
If you’ve got a medical issue, the direct insurance have never asked for that question upfront. What does that mean? When you got a claim, they’re not just going to bother. At that time, that’s when they’ll ask you to provide all the evidence.
Now, you just had an injury or something just happened, an accident. Now, these insurance companies want to dig up all of your medical history. You’re not in a position to be able to do that.
What we do is we get this information upfront. We’ll ask you to provide as much medical history as you have. In some cases, you might need to undergo a medical test. Your doctors may be consulted to give us some medical reports. Therein, your insurance is tailored and customized to your specific needs.
Both sides have their pros and cons. I hope this video gave you some information on the differences between getting insurance quickly and easily or cheaply over the telephone or on TV or coming to speak to a financial advisor like myself. We will sit down and tailor for you a specific insurance cover.
Thank you. Have a good day.
Video: Direct Insurance vs Adviser Part 2
Read the transcript below:
Hi, it’s Mohamed Said here! About ten days ago, I recorded a video about getting insurance from direct insurers that you see on television or telemarketers that may phone you and say, “Listen, we are offering you some life insurance that you can purchase over the phone versus seeing a financial adviser and getting a financial adviser to give you a quote on life insurance.”
It just so happens that about five minutes ago I was actually called by one of these telemarketers because I was a member of one of their loyalty programs and they were calling all of their customers to see if they could sell them some life insurance. I happen to play around with the lovely telemarketer that called me. As I mentioned in my last video, it was a very straightforward process. It was very easy.
They just asked you a couple of questions and I noted down what those questions are. “Can you confirm me if you’re male or female? Can you confirm if you’ve smoked in the last 12 months? Is your income over $50,000? And, are you an Australian resident?” Pass all of those questions, you then qualify for them to give you a quote.
I asked the lovely lady to provide me with a quote and she came back. The quote for myself for a million dollars worth covered worked out to be $41.15 a fortnight. That is $82.30 per month. I said, “Well, that’s not too bad. Thank you very much. What are the next steps for me?” She said, “Look, if you’re happy with that, we can go through over the phone and have you sign up and we’ll send you all the paperwork through to you over the next couple of days. Simple process. Done.”
I said, “Thank you very much. I’m a financial adviser. I don’t need to take up any insurances. I already have insurance in place. Thank you very much.” And, I hung up with her. I then decided to do a little exercise and quote her. Just a fresh quote for myself, for life insurance for a million dollars. The very first quote that came back to me was at $49.04 per month, so this was cheaper. They were going to charge me $82.30. The first quote that came back when I plugged it in myself was $49.04.
Over 12 months, that’s a $480 saving that I would have had if I would have obviously gone down the pathway of getting an adviser to provide me with some quotes. An adviser would provide you with a range of quotes, not with one particular company, but with a range of different companies.
What I am getting at here together with my last video when I spoke about the need to provide your health history to an insurance company upfront so that you can assure that a successful claim can be made when you need to make a claim. Today’s video is about those insurances are not going to necessarily be cheaper than coming to see a financial adviser because in this exercise, I just saved myself $480 and I’m sure you would be happy to save a large amount such as that.
Mohamed Said here from Avante Financial Services. Please come and speak with me if you would like to get some life insurance, some disability insurance and trauma protection. I’ll sit down with you, go through your individual circumstances and needs, and I’ll provide you with an appropriate quote on a product that will suit your needs.
I look forward to seeing you.
