Top Tips for Getting the Best Life Insurance

The internet is full of advice. Where advice used to come at a premium price (either at massive hourly consulting rates!), or be sourced through friends and family, we now have access to the opinions of some well-respected experts online ... for free. However the advice does tend to be a little scattered, broken up, and sometimes wordy. One authority that has a clear interest in making sure that consumer’s know their rights, their obligations and how best to make use of life insurance is the government - so today we go to the ultimate information source for tips on getting the best life insurance. These tips come from fido.gov.au.

Tip #1: Life insurance is essential!
ASIC says what the majority of sources across the internet say ... that having life insurance is part of good financial planning. The years for which you keep it and the benefit amount you choose to maintain can obviously vary, though.

Tip #2: Look at your life insurance available through superannuation
Many people have the option to buy life insurance through their super fund. Government advice doesn't necessarily recommend that you take the single option available through your super fund - this policy may be completely unsuitable for many people, and the best life insurance option for you may be in the much larger private field. However, they do note the possibility that the premiums will be lower.

Tip #3: Look beyond the highest income earner
So many people are caught out when they insure only the highest income earner in the household and find that if the lower income earner or stay-at-home spouse dies, there is an enormous ongoing financial burden. Stay-at-home spouses don't contribute to the incomings of a household, but they do a lot to minimize outgoings. Childcare costs, cooking and cleaning help may need to be brought in if a stay-at-home spouse dies, and life insurance can help cover that.

Tip #4: Read the PDS
There is simply no way to decide if a policy offers the best life insurance for you if you don't know all of its terms and conditions! Reading the PDS is essential ... but beyond that, reading your policy document when it arrives is just as important.

Tip #5: Talk about it
You, your partner and family all need to be on the same page when it comes to life insurance ... if only because if you take out a policy on yourself, they need to know it exists to be able to claim on it!

Tip #6: Fulfill your duty of disclosure
One of the most important elements in ensuring you get the best life insurance policy is honesty in the medical examination. If you tell a half-truth or omit important information, the insurer could refuse to pay your claim ... and then all those years of faithfully paying premiums would be wasted.

Tip #7: Check for inflation indexing
Life insurance is a long term investment. To make sure you have the best life insurance benefit for your needs, it's far easier to choose a product that is automatically inflation-indexed rather than trying to do the calculation yourself.

Life insurance