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How The Right Insurance Turned A Crisis Into A Lifeline For A Young Family; · That Home Loan Hub

• 0:10
  SPEAKER_02: Hello and welcome back to that Homelon Hub.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_02: Today I have a special guest with me, and his name is Blake Sutton from Ridgeline Insurances.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_02: Hello, Blake.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_02: Good morning.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_02: How are you doing?
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's Monday.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_02: Good start to the week.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_02: Can't complain.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: That's awesome.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so excited to have another Wellington guest here.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_02: It's so cool that people travel out of Wellington to Little Old Waikanae to record this with me.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for coming.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Waikonai's a cool place.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Place to be.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_02: Awesome.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_02: Blake, well, um, our listeners may have no idea who you are.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_02: So let's start with a little brief introduction into who is Blake.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Well, as uh Zabinisa said, my name's Blake Sutton.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I've been in the insurance industry, uh, working for myself or contracting since 2013.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: 13 years, so it's been a while.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I got into the industry through my father, who's an ex-insurance advisor, now retired, but we managed to work together for five years at first, which was really good.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: Wow, how was that working with dad?
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_02: I was really cool.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, he was at the end of his um his working career, and he's come from an era where compliance was non-existent, so it was a bit of a laugh.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I was always told not to sit next to him because I'd pick up bad mistakes.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Bad habits, bad habits, yes, which became um pretty pretty clear quite quickly, but no, it was great.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it was nice to have that friendship, especially that part of his career and early in my career.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_02: Hmm, because I always wonder about it.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_02: Obviously, you know, I've got a few kids, and I wonder if one of them decides to take over from me one day and what it's gonna look like.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, it goes back another generation.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: My pop, his father was an insurance advisor.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, so you can imagine the compliance or non-compliance, uh, and the way that insurance was um sold then is is far different to now.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: They used to have rate books and they'd open up the book, your age, find the rate, there you go, sound, write it on the back of a napkin.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this is a long, long time ago, right?
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: So things have changed.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: So, and that I never I never wanted to get into insurance, not because I didn't like insurance, but I didn't didn't know financial services.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: So it was quite interesting to find out that my pop was in the the insurance industry as well.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, I always knew my father was in some capacity.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: So that's me, that's Blake Sutton.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: I've been, yeah, I've been uh the last six years, I have been with uh formerly my business partner at the mortgage and insurance shop, and we're we've moved on now, and I'm running Ridgeline Insurance.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: Prior to that, I worked for six years contracting with a corporate called Lifetime who happened down the country.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that was interesting, it was good to learn the ropes.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: I came up with my father, obviously, but also some of the mentors, his good friends, family friends as well, that were in that office environment.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I got some really good uh building blocks to start my career.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it was a pity that that came to an end.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: What actually happened was Lifetime joined another financial service provider called Camelot, and we were sold it would be a merger, but it became quite clear quickly that it was more of a takeover.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: The CEO of Camelot would run Lifetime, but they kept the Lifetime brand.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: And why that didn't suit me, it was they they proceeded to turn everyone from contractors self-employed into employees.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Oh god, you can't do that.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, not in my industry.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: I don't see not I don't see how that would benefit me.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: And they said, here you go, we're gonna give you X amount, and we're also going to give you these benefits, and it comes to this.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: But I said, hold on, who's gonna take all the ownership and emission structures?
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: So it didn't suit me, which is fine because it gave me a good motivation to I could I brought my clients with me.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: It was always contracted that I could bring though, so that was very good.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: Brought them with me, met with a new business partner at that time, and it was the best thing I'd ever done going out from that corporate to being on my own.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: And the last six years post that with the mortgage and insurance shop has been really great.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's it got me out of that corporate, but it's also time to move on.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: So that and that's that's been a good thing as well.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_02: There's a seven-year cycle.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_02: Do you know about that?
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: It seems like that, doesn't it?
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: So refresher.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I mean, I've got another seven years before something else changes, maybe.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_02: I love it.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've been doing the same job that whole time though.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: What excites you about insurances?
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Helping people.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: I come from an industry I come from before working in insurance.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: I worked thoroughly across the hospitality industry, across the UK, Australia, and New Zealand, um, managing restaurants, cafes, being a barista, barista training, you name it, hospitality.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: I've probably given it a go once or twice.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: And that was more of just uh a way to get by at first.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Young needed to earn some money, and I quite enjoyed it because it has a very big social aspect to it.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's what has transferred very well into what I do is dealing with people.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_02: You gotta you've gotta love people.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: I think in our industry, if you don't love people, it's not I couldn't do you can't survive.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: I never could picture myself doing an office job.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Office job.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Quotation marks for the I love I love how you did the quotation marks, but no one can see us.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: So um, and that that served me really well.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I I think I I couldn't do a job where I was at a desk and it was for some mundane company that didn't excite you, whatever it is you're working in personally.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because in insurance, I'm dealing with people and helping them to protect their financial futures.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm real passionate about that, and I've seen both sides of that and how you can implement tailored insurance plans for people, which on paper, yes, it's gonna be amazing what this can do, but then when you actually see that happen, what you've put in place and how it really changes people's life if the worst happens or they are faced with a major health event, it's just incredible.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, it's because it really does, and people don't understand the full value of insurance unless they have to claim some time.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because that's the problem we have, right?
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um, people see it as an expense, yeah, they don't see it as an investment in themselves or into you know a protection into their future.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: So what I'm curious to know is in your career, and looks like you had a really fantastic career in the last decade or more.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, what were the case where you were like, you know, gosh, it would have been so much different if they didn't have insurance?
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_02: Do you have one of those for me?
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um I I guess a good one would be Yeah, okay.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: So this so a good one would be someone that's I they had a young family, they'd just taken out a mortgage, just got engaged, and by young family it's it was she was pregnant at that stage.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: So family to be.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: So the classic example of when people start thinking of insurance, and this person was uh close to me, so I knew the sort of person he was, and insurance wouldn't have been on his radar.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: But because I knew them, naturally we sat down and spoke about income protection, life insurance, just some basic cover at that stage, and we got it in place.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: I was very thorough with the uh application process because I know this person and there was a lot of history there, and it's so important with disclosures to get them correct, especially at applications, so there's no surprises when claims arise in the future.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: Long story short, this particular person was king hit one evening without having a few drinks, unprovoked, and it led to a major head concussion, and instantly he couldn't work.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: This person was self-employed, running their own business, and all of a sudden couldn't do that and produce an income.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: So all of a sudden, income protection becomes so important.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: So in this case, we managed to get his income protection paid out.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: He had a four-week wait period, and it made a world of difference.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: And because it was a particular claim that the doctors said, look, you're gonna be off work for six months, they paid out six months all at once.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: Oh wow.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: It led to a two-year claim before he could get back into work, but it was that injection of cash straight away went a long way for them to be able to maintain their mortgage and just keep up with the costs involved of starting a new family.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: On top of that, for this uh for this particular client, it led to another claim uh on his trauma insurance, and trauma insurance pays a lump sum of money if you suffer a defined major illness.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: In this case, it was it triggered the condition major head trauma, and I was working on this one in the background.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: And for any major head trauma, which is essentially some kind of permanent brain damage, there has to be a period of time before an insurer will pay that because they have to understand that there is permanent brain damage.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I was working on that one in the background and managed to get a full payout of about 56k for this person, but they weren't aware I was ticking those boxes in the background, they had enough to deal with.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I was able to give them that phone call and say, Hey, look, there's a 56k payout coming your way.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: How does that sound?
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: And you could hear the wife in the background crying, all these little bits and pieces.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess to come back to your original point, that's a prime example of why I love what I do and how it can really help people.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they just give me goosebumps, my god.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you know, and it's the unfortunate part about that, the fortunate, unfortunate side is when you do have these discussions with people, and then something does happen and they haven't taken your advice for whatever reason, because everyone's got their own things going on, just because I say you've got to do this, people don't have to.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: But as long as you get the opportunity to talk about things, then you've got to take some ownership there, right?
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: And where they have needed, say, trauma insurance and they've had some form of major illness, and then you actually see the ramifications of not having that financial support.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: So it goes both ways.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully it doesn't go hopefully it goes the right way for most people, especially the ones listening.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's um it definitely brings home when you know that you could have done something, and then as you see, if they didn't take your advice, because I had a very similar experience where um back in the day, you know, when my ex-husband was doing insurances and um we had this friend, and he approached them.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_02: The guy was a GP and he said, Look, um, you know, you should be having at least this level of cover.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_02: And unfortunately, our friend didn't take that advice, and um, and shortly after he got sick by pneumonia, and he spent like a few months in coma and then he passed away.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_02: And he left a lot of debt behind, he had kids, you know, as well, and his wife never worked a day in her life, so really she was hit by a massive shock because they were renting this flash house, you know, they were living a lifestyle, yeah, because he was a GP, you know, he was earning mega money, and he just opened a clinic in uh Levine.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_02: It was a big story about him in the news um when he passed away.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_02: So um, when he was dying, he because he was sort of coming out of coma, he couldn't really talk much.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_02: He wrote on the whiteboard um one million, and his wife thought that he had a one million cover, and she got like, okay, at least you know, like something, something will be sorted.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_02: But when he passed away, she found out he only had like a 200k cover that he never upgraded because he thought he did, but he never did.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_02: So um that really brought it home for me that to see how much his family suffered afterwards, like losing your loved one is already a massive trauma, right?
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_02: Experiencing that, but then also dealing with the repercussions of the financial downfalls from that was a completely, you know, it was just horrible to watch that.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's um it's quite interesting that you say that because time and time again, I you know I deal with people from all different backgrounds and financial situations, and quite often the people who earn lots of money don't need insurance.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's their thought process.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: But most of these people who earn more money still live within their means and they're outgoings and sometimes their debt is larger because it complements their income, and they end up with being in worse situations because that threshold is even higher.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: So it's important regardless if you're in 70k a year or if you're in 400k a year, just because you've got a lot of money, doesn't mean that's going to cover you in that in those circumstances because sometimes you might have a two million dollar mortgage because you can and you can service it comfortably, but then that risk is even higher if you were to leave it behind a family or someone else without the right insurance.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: So that's interesting you bring up that point because I I come across that lots.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's also you know, it comes down to our human nature.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_02: We don't want to think about bad things happening to us.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_02: No, we just want to have a good, happy life, and you know, bad things do happen to people out there, but not to us.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean, I don't know if I told you uh if I told you a story, I actually had a concussion at home.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, really?
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_02: I fell off the playground.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_02: Oh nice swing.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_02: And sorry, listeners for my coughing again.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_02: I actually should see how many episodes I'm coughing in now.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's a running theme, is it?
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's a running theme.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_02: But um, it was funny because I was swinging on the swing with my son, and then he got up suddenly and I lost my balance and I went backwards.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_02: And it was summer, and it was the ground was supposed to have grass, but it didn't.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_02: It was like literally like concrete.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I hit my head and I was lying on the ground.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_02: He cried, my mom came out, got the baby.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_02: I'm still on the ground, like, oh, so some something's weird, you know, something's going on.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I didn't realize I had a concussion until days later.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I I got up, you know, I wasn't feeling well.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and at that time I was pregnant with my fourth child.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_02: So I had a lot of symptoms that are very similar to concussion, and the doctor sort of dismissed me.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_02: It wasn't until I crashed my car on the pole, I was trying to park a car, and I realized my depth of perception has changed.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't see the pole.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I've been driving the car for 20 years, and I never ever had an accident in my entire life.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I just took the wrong turn, thinking the pool was a bit further away.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I cried, and I ran straight into the pool, and my mum was next to me.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_02: She's like, What are you doing?
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, I thought it was far away.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_02: And that's when it hit me that something's wrong with me.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: And because I was having this headaches, you know, severe headaches, I couldn't do my job for um a period of time.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_02: And I realized again that something was wrong with me when I couldn't do basic numbers.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean numbers is my game, right?
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_02: So when I was talking to clients, when I talk to clients, usually they give me numbers in my head, it's already ticking.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_02: I know 80%, I know 20%, I know all those things.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember sitting in an appointment and I couldn't grasp simple things.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_02: And that terrified me.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, oh my God.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_02: And in that moment I realized, holy heck, if I lose my ability to earn, and this is my livelihood, right?
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: This is how I run my business, this is how I make my money, um, what's gonna happen to me?
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_02: What's gonna happen to my kids?
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_02: And this is where it really hit home again that having those insurances is super important.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_02: And luckily, like I made pretty much full recovery.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_02: I still get headaches every now and then if I drive too much or if I sit on front of the computer too much.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_02: But um, I can't imagine like people that have it permanently.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and if they didn't have the right insurance in place to protect them, because you see, people's assumption is ACC will cover me.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I know if something like this happens, but they don't realize that ACC only covers injury and accidents, yeah.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_02: And it's only what 70% of the income?
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: Correct.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_02: And you have to keep proving to them that you're not fit for 80%.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_02: Before tax.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_02: And then you still have to prove to them every year, every two years or whatever, that you're not fit to return to work.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_02: Versus with insurance, do you have to do that with insurance?
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Insurance, you do have to run through uh claim forms every month, but the difference with ACC on claim from my experience and dealing with my clients and income protection is ACC seem to have targets which they probably have to work towards getting people off or working towards budgets within.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, the government budgets, yeah.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mean that's that's my motive.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas insurers seem they don't push you back to work unnecessarily because then you're gonna be back on claim.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: So they'd rather rehabilitate help rehabilit rehabilitate you the best they can with their means versus obviously whatever you're dealing with.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why most income protection policies will have partial disability.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: So if you are partially dis uh partially rehabilitated and you can go back to work, but you can't work full-time, you might be able to say work 20 hours, but then your income protection will reduce by 20 hours.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: So therefore, you might be working half the week and then earning half the week through your claim, through your income protection claim.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a really good way.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that's what that's where I think private insurance, well, I know private insurance makes a big difference.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: And ACC is not to be relied upon.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, well, we know.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_02: We know that.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I okay, I have an interesting one.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_02: On the weekend, I was chatting with this client, and she said that some financial advisor came through her work and gave them some advice, you know, looked at the mortgages, looked at the insurance or lack of um because they don't have anything at the moment, young family.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_02: And she's like, Well, he said to us that, you know, uh a lot of people tend to overinsure, and they instead of paying the absolute minimum, they tend to go and get something extraordinary, and then they don't tend to claim.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_02: So he suggested we get just health insurance, and that should just cover us.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, really?
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Who is this guy?
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: I want to talk to him.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's I mean, health insurance is very important, uh, especially more so post-COVID, right?
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you'd have to be looking under a rock to not see how the state of our current public health system and the biggest thing is wait times.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's just blown out hugely.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_02: Are the wait times less if you have health insurance?
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: Generally, yes.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: But even I'm experiencing with health claims, even in some scenarios, private insurance is still pushed out to what it once was, but public is even further than that.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: So it's still valuable to have health insurance.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_02: Because they bump you up the list, eh?
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: They definitely do.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, with with the public system, it's a worst case scenario that comes first.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: And with private insurance, it's because it's private, you just go into a into a queue, you're next up.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to be worst-case scenario first.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: So um health insurance is super important.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_02: So tell me.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_02: Sorry.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_02: Sorry, I'm so sorry.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_02: Tell me, um, in regards to health insurance, for instance, if people don't have health insurance but they want to self-insure themselves, so they've got cash, right?
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_02: Can they also skip the list of public and go?
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: If you've got enough cash to pay private, but the I mean the whole self-insuring, I hear that quite a lot in dealing with people.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: Who's gonna be diligent enough to put away enough per week to actually compensate them?
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: And how how do you know how much you need?
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's the bigger question, right?
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: Honestly, like so often, and you and we're you know and we're circling back to the whole self-insuring and over-insuring, but you know, if a claim actually arises, what I found for a lot of people is what they have is never enough.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, how long is a piece of string?
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, it's got to work to your budget requirements, you don't want to take out so much insurance that it's crippling to your other financial outgoings.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: So, but what my point is that it's from if you actually face with a major health event, then you really see the cost and why that you need it.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, for a lot of people, what they have falls short.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: And where that happens even more so is if you put in a policy and you set and forget, but you don't actively have it reviewed and you have a claim in the future, then you'll a lot of people realize I should have updated that because it's great, I've got it, but it's actually it's not in line with my current needs.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I've taken out a second house or I've taken on a bigger mortgage, I've my family's grown.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: It could be a number of things.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, overinsured is definitely better than underinsured, but I don't think people really understand how much overinsured they are until they actually claim, and that they're probably not overinsured, is my point.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: But in saying that, everyone's situation is different, hence why you need to actively have your policies reviewed so you're not over or underinsured.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, I totally agree.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_02: I had a uh claim recently where a young female went to see a doctor, you know, for routine routine smear tests, etc.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um, they couldn't really do it properly, and then they had to refer her to a gynecologist to get it done in Wellington.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_02: And because she had private health insurance, yes, she could be seen.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_02: Like I think it was the same week or next week they got her in.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_02: That's amazing.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and lucky again, you know, the biopsy showed that there was something going on.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: They sent off the results, came back luckily all clean.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_02: But having that speed of being seen and having something picked up fast enough could be the difference between saving someone's life.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, peace of mind.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I think that's what people don't realize that sometimes by letting it go, she'll be right.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, um, it's actually you putting yourself in a worse-off position because the body will get.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, a lot of insurance is peace of mind.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: So if something happens, you know that you and your family are gonna be financially secure so you can concentrate on what really matters, and that's getting better.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_02: Getting better, yeah.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_02: It's funny, you just reminded me another case of when you said underinsured, not related to life insurance or mortgage protection, but I have this lovely friend of mine in um Palmerster North, and they had a restaurant, and the restaurant burned down.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: Oh no.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_02: And he realized in that moment when they went to make a claim, they didn't update their uh commercial insurance for over 10 years.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_02: So the payout they got did not really they couldn't reopen.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, they couldn't reopen.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_02: Like they managed to get, you know, because I think they were leasing the building.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_02: So they managed to get something sorted, it was the landlord and stuff like that, but they can't reopen.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, this is it's the problem with insurance, right?
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I'm really big with my clients on giving people the full picture of what's available and what they should consider at a maximum.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: But you do have to balance it out with your outgoings and costs.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's a b it's finding that balance point for a lot of people.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people do naturally tend to go to for the lower premium, which which I agree.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: But you buy a restaurant, you run a business, you've got you have family, you have children taking a mortgage, you gain certain responsibilities.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that's easy for me to say because I do this, and that's insurance.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of people don't I I get the attitude for a lot of people with it.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you might have heard bad claims stories, but I'll tell you now, everything you hear in the news about bad claims is generally relates to non-disclosure.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it's for every case that doesn't pay, there's probably about 20, 30, 40, 50 that do.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_02: And we get the statistics, right?
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_02: From the insurance companies, we can see how many millions they pay out each year, um, and under different categories.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: And cancer is the biggest.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's the biggest.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's just so prevalent.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it's crazy when you look at those statistics um across the board, even just from one insurer.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have any to hand, but cancer's always up there.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: And the second would be mental health.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: The problem with mental health outside of what people are dealing with, a lot of the time mental health can compound on what your condition is.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: You might have cancer, and then the mental health aspect kicks in because you can't work, because you're suffering, or whatever it might be.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: So therefore, you're not just dealing with cancer, now you've got depression or or something else related.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: So it's so important to have these covers in place.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_02: And again, like I can see how uh you can go down spiral really fast, you know, if something happens to like honestly, not a big thing that happened to me, but God.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um, a few weeks ago, I had like a frozen neck, frozen shoulder, went for a massage and was supposed to be dip tissue massage to, you know, relieve the pain, relieve the pain in my neck and shoulder, but um tore a muscle in my rib.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_02: Ouch.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, don't know how it happened.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_02: But apparently my body doesn't know how to relax.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_02: So case important, that's my work 24-7.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_02: But it was funny because I got up and I could feel the pain and I was like, oh, that hurts a bit.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_02: He goes, Oh, you know, sometimes it happens, you know, give your body a couple of days to rest.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_02: By that night, I was in agony.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_02: Like I was in so much pain.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_02: And because I was still coughing, every cough was like getting stabbed, you know.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, man, what happened?
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_02: Then I couldn't sleep the whole night.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_02: The next day I went to the doctors finally, and it takes me a while to go to the doctors.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I never go to the doctors.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_02: So when I ring for an appointment, they see me straight away.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_02: They're like, Yep, cool, come on in.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_02: I'm one of those lucky ones.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, don't have to wait for like three weeks to be seen.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_02: Six weeks.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, I ring up and they're like we got an appointment for coming in.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_02: So I went in that afternoon and then they sent me for an x-ray.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_02: Luckily, the x-ray showed, no broken ribs or anything.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_02: And then I went to the chiropractor the next day and they were like, Yeah, nah, you you ripped a muscle.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, which is really strange thing to happen to your body.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_02: But apparently, when you get a massage, if your body's not fully relaxed, your body tends to, if your body tenses up, it goes, Oh, something's bad's gonna happen.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_02: Let's protect the ribs.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and instead of the ribs breaking, yeah, the muscle gave.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_02: So that's what happened.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_02: And um, yeah, I couldn't, I couldn't, you know, sleep, I couldn't cough and it hurts so much.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_02: I couldn't do simple things, um, like even lifting my daughter, and that started to make me grumpy, you know.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, damn, I can't do this things that I'm used to.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_02: Even in the shower, like reaching out for shower gel.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, you know, I was like, oh, I can't even do that.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_02: So um, anything that requires reaching out at the moment, I can't do with my right side.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_02: But if I try to do with the left, also not that great.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: And goods are a long recovery, exactly.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_02: So um, yes, I've been told no sport for the next six to eight weeks, and I need to be moving because my job is very stressful, you know, and if I'm not letting it out in one shape or form, I know I get grumpy, and then my poor children get the brunt of it.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I was thinking about it that holy heck, like those poor people that you know, something bad happens to them, how much mentally it does affect you.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, your point is absolutely on point that you don't just get cancer, you get you know mental health issues from that.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: You don't just get um a traumatic event happen to you.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_02: It affects your family, it affects your earning capacity, and then it brings and again, finances is the core of everything we do in our life.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_02: If you don't have the money, your quality of life reduces substantially.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_02: So I think this is what people don't like to talk about, but it's really needed conversation to bring it home for people to understand of why we do what we do and why we're so passionate about it.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_02: Because we've seen so much bad stuff happen to good people.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_02: We don't we want to prevent that.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: I mean to simplify insurance is all about taking away that financial stress.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: And that can that varies from person to person, but if you can eliminate the financial stress when you're faced with the a major health event or whatever it might be, then that's half the issue.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: Then you can concentrate on sorting what's at hand.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_02: And the example I always bring, and I think I mentioned that in my other podcast as well, is for me personally was when my dad died, and he was only 42, 43.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: 43.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_02: And he died from age.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_02: I know, right?
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_02: Scary.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_02: I was seven, um, and he had a heart attack and stroke, and there was no saving.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_02: And my mom was 37, she was my age now, you know, and to think about it that she was left with three kids and back home, we didn't have government support, we didn't have benefits, we didn't have anything.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_02: So for us to go from two income earners to one income earner, and with my mom, it was a lot of like uh culturally also taboo to be going back to work straight away after your husband passes away.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_02: Got you and And but she had to.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_02: She had no other choice.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_02: So for me personally, I've seen what lack of insurance does.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_02: Because we didn't have insurance back home at that time.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_02: But because we didn't have anything, we didn't have any safety net.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_02: When my dad died unexpectedly, we were left in absolute hole.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_02: You know, so I don't want anyone that I'm dealing with that I know if I can help them to have at least that conversation, then I know I can sleep well at night.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's why we do what we do.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_02: Like it has been so lovely to get to know you.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_02: Five seconds of fame.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_02: Where can people find you?
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh whether they can find me, online.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: LinkedIn.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: Ridgeline insurance.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh pretty easy to find these days.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: I just have a home office.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's all I need.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: Based in the link to the name.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: Based in Lower Hutt.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: Lower Hutt.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: Nice.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um so Google.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_02: We do a lot of Zoom meetings and stuff like that with clients these days, don't we?
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh more and more so.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: I prefer face-to-face.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: But convenience-wise, you can't beat it.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: People are busy.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, fit it in when you can.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: Team Zoom, face to face.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever works.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_02: And what sort of insurances do you do?
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I cover risk insurance.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: So basically, risk has anything to do with your health.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: So health insurance, i.e., private and private medical cover to avoid public health system, uh, protecting your income, which is arguably your biggest asset.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: If you can't produce an income, how do you pay for your house, your contents, your cars?
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: Trauma insurance, permanent disability cover, lump sum payments if you can't work again or if you suffer a major illness.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that's basically the crux of the insurances that I do.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_02: And life insurance.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, life insurance.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_02: Like, how could you forget the beginning?
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't had any life insurance claims in my 13 years, which is a good thing.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: But yes, it's very important.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: And for a lot of people, that comes along when they take out debt and have kids.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: Depending on your circumstances.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_02: Awesome.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_02: Like, thank you so much.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_02: So lovely to you.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, have you today?
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_02: Are you gonna come back and tell me some more stories?
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: If you want me to come back, I'll come back.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: Sweet.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: See you soon.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: See you later.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: Bye.