Income Protection Insurance Blogs

Home: More Than Just a Place to Live, It’s a Smart Investment

Managing your family home isn’t just about creating a cozy living space—it’s also a savvy investment, especially in today’s Australian property market. With all the shifts and shakes in the…

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Life Insurance: A Guide to Secure Your Future

Today, we’re going to talk about a difficult topic. Death. While average life expectancy has almost doubled over the last 100 years, the rate of death remains the same –…

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Healthy Money Management: Business and Personal Perspectives

In this post, we delve into the crucial aspects of managing both business and personal money effectively. We believe that maintaining a balance is key to a prosperous future. So,…

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Super Retirement Bonus: Maximizing Your Pension Benefits

Some super funds offer what’s called a retirement bonus as an incentive to keep your money with them when you move from working life into retirement. What exactly are these…

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Tax Reform AU: Navigating the Stage 3 Tax Cuts

As Australia gears up for the implementation of Stage 3 Tax Cuts, it’s imperative for both individuals and businesses to understand the upcoming changes and identify strategic planning opportunities. These…

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Tax Cuts Australia: Unraveling Stage 3 Tax Changes

Are you ready to uncover the latest tax cuts Australia has in store? Dive into our comprehensive guide to understand the ins and outs of these transformative changes. Unless you…

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Think About Business Coaching

If you run your own business, think about talking to us for some business coaching. Business coaching is a valuable tool for business owners seeking to enhance their performance, overcome…

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How Australia’s Economy Outshines the Rest of the World

What makes Australia’s economy one of the most stable and prosperous in the world? This article will answer this question by examining the factors that contribute to the success of…

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Student Loans: To Repay or not to Repay?

One of the most common questions we are asked by our younger clients, or the parents of our younger clients, is whether and when to make a voluntary repayment of…

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How to Save Money When you are just Getting Started

Embark on your journey to prosperity with our practical guide on how to save money from scratch. Learn effective strategies and tips that can help you manage your resources better, grow your…

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Perfect Timing for Achieving Your Wealth Goals

Sometimes life’s timing is perfect. We have written before about the best way to use an inheritance. Last Sunday, we came across an almost ideal scenario for when to receive…

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Wealth Management: Exploring Unknowns

People of a certain age will remember former US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld describing ‘knowns and unknowns’ way back in 2002. The full quote is as follows: There are…

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Parents as bankers: Exploring the Dual Role

Recent estimates claim that the ‘Bank of Mum and Dad’ is Australia’s ninth largest lender. Given the state of house prices, this comes as no surprise. Most parents want to help…

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Halloween in Australia: A Good Time for Reviewing Life Insurance

This Halloween, take a moment to reflect on the importance of life insurance. Discover why this spooky season is the perfect time for a comprehensive review of your policies. If…

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The Best Time to Think

The best advice anyone ever gave us was to plan our next holiday while still enjoying the current one. There are a bunch of reasons for this. But the main…

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What does a bank know about spending?

Every time we tap or swipe to make an electronic payment, or send a payment by direct debit, there is someone who knows exactly what we have spent our money…

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Pension Payments are Going Up!

Centrelink benefits have gone up this week. Commonwealth payments are adjusted twice a year – once in Mid-March and again in Mid-September. Some benefits are pegged to the CPI, while…

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What’s the Ideal Age to Retire?

What’s the ideal age to retire? We came across some intriguing research recently that shows that people’s ideal retirement age changes as they get closer to actually retiring. And, perhaps…

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Wanna Know a Super Secret for Retirement?

Last week, we saw that there are two ways to accumulate super: contributions and earnings. Over time, we expect that earnings will have more impact on retirement than the money…

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Wanna Know a Super Secret?

Working Australians receive a guaranteed portion of their wages or salaries as a super contribution each year. Self-employed Australians (hopefully) pay some of their own profits into super each year.…

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Retire Well with an Income Stream

You know that the worst of Covid is behind us when the rules for your super start to bounce back to normal. On July 1 this year, we saw yet…

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The Women’s World Cup and Good Money Management

The Women’s World Cup is on and the Matildas are playing magnificently! They have already made the final eight, and this weekend they have the chance to push through to…

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How Many Types of Money are There?

Did you know that there is more than one type of money? We recently came across a fascinating book by American economist Joseph Wang. The book is titled Central Banking…

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RBA’s Inflation Struggle: The ‘Feet in the Oven, Head in the Freezer’ Problem

If your feet are in an oven and your head is in the freezer, on average you probably feel quite comfortable. That’s the problem with averages. And it is a…

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Want a Lower Interest Rate? There’s no Harm in Asking

As interest rates continue to rise unabated, many of our clients are finding that things are getting tight. They are wondering what to do. Well, the first step for many…

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The Cheque’s (No Longer) In the Mail

If you like writing or receiving cheques, your days might be numbered. Last week, Treasurer Jim Chalmers announced a plan to phase out the use of personal cheques by 2030.…

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The End Is Nigh (of the Financial Year, that is)

June 30 is sneaking up on us and there are only three more weeks until the end of the year. Time to really make sure you have all your ducks…

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The smarter way to seachange

One of the less-reported elements of the Covid years was the rise in ‘seachangers.’ In the year to June 30 2021, the percentage of Australians living in cities fell from 67.4% to…

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More on Budget 2023

Last week we looked at the recent Budget’s ‘big picture’ – the unexpected surplus of $4 billion. This week, we take a closer look at some of the specific announcements.…

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Budget 2023 – An Unexpected Surplus

The Commonwealth Government handed down it’s Budget on Tuesday night. One of the most striking things about the Budget is that the Government will be in surplus for the 2022/2023…

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What is Monetary Policy Anyway?

Last week you may have seen the release of a review into the Reserve Bank of Australia. The review calls for a number of changes, none of which are particularly…

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Competition is bad for the Competitors!

It has been a relatively quiet week in finance so we thought we would write about a fun piece of research we came across recently. It is all to do…

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Travel is an Import and how Exchange Rates Work

If you have been travelling overseas for any length of time, you will have noticed how easy it has become to transfer Australian dollars into the currency of whichever country…

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A Climate Change Response that Beats Inflation

Much has been made of the impact of inflation on Australian businesses and households over recent months. This week, we decided to take a look at one of the largest…

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What happened to Silicon Valley Bank?

You may have seen the recent news that an American Bank, Silicon Valley Bank, collapsed. This raises two important questions: what happened? And, could something similar happen here? What Was…

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What Can an SMSF Pay For?

It has been a while since we last wrote about self-managing your super. Self-managing super can be a lot of fun and, if done well, can be very cost-effective as…

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Super’s Got a New Cap

You may have seen recent commentary about a new cap on large super balances. It has caused a lot of discussion, but the changes will not affect that many people.…

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All debt is paid off ‘After-Tax’

If you have a debt, you are probably making repayments. Each repayment you make is probably divided into two parts: interest and principal. Indeed, technically, you are only actually making…

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When you have debt, every dollar you spend is a borrowed dollar. It’s a loop.

Many people have debt. Not as many people realise that, if you have debt of any kind, then every dollar you spend is another dollar you have borrowed. That’s how debt works.…

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Managing Debt Better – Good Debts versus Bad Debts

Interest rates are in the news and they will stay there for a while yet. So, now is a great time to think about how you are managing your debt.…

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What to Do if Someone Dies

Australia’s death rate remains the same as it has always been. We get one death each. The problem is, very few of us know when our death will come. What…

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How to Win at Tennis. And Investing

It is Australian Open time again and the world’s attention focusses on Australia’s very own Grand Slam Tennis Tournament. Happily, with Covid restrictions much less this year, we will see…

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Give the Gift of Conversation – for the Good of the Country!

It is the festive season and for many of our clients, that means presents. Yes, the ones they receive. But also the ones they give. And giving, for many people,…

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Taking Time to Think

It is almost the end of the year. Which means, of course, that it is almost the start of next year. When it comes to money, the turning of the…

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Superannuation When Retirement Comes into View

This is the third in our trilogy examining superannuation throughout a working life. Having looked at those people starting out in their career and those in the middle decades of…

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Mid-Career Superannuation

Last week, we looked at why super is, well, super, even for people just starting out in their careers. This week, we take a look at superannuation for people a…

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Gen Z and Zuperannuation

The end of the school and University year means many young men and women are starting their first ‘real job.’ That first job might be an apprenticeship, a graduate job,…

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Thinking of Buying an Electric Car?

The new Federal Government delivered its first Federal Budget earlier this week. As is our tradition, we will bring you a comprehensive analysis in coming weeks as the announcements and…

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Why has the price of going to the US risen so much?

We wrote last week about exchange rates. The article inspired a few people to get in touch – including people thinking of travelling to the US – so this week…

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Exchange Rates are Falling. Is that good or bad?

You may have seen recently that the Aussie Dollar has fallen when measured against the US dollar. At first glance, most people think this is a bad thing. Happily, the…

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Lynnise Ashford

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Now That’s Good Estate Planning!

A well-known man in England recently gained an inheritance. It is a pretty substantial one, too. According to Forbes Magazine, King Charles inherited approximately $US500 Million in assets from his Mum and…

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What Is Trauma Insurance?

Trauma insurance is sometimes called the ‘fourth form’ of life insurance – the other three being income protection, total and permanent disability and death cover. Trauma insurance can also be…

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Vale Olivia and Judith

Music lovers have been really saddened lately by the passing of two Australian icons, Olivia Newton John and Judith Durham. A third Australian music legend, John Farnham, recently underwent surgery…

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Keeping Centrelink out of Your Life

We recently came across a newspaper article that broke our hearts as wealth Coaches. The article is written by a lady with three special needs children, whose husband passed away unexpectedly…

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Small Change Can Create Big Changes

Recent interest rate rises have focused a lot of minds on loans and their repayment. You probably already know that making extra payments on a loan can save you money.…

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Protect that Income!

We insure our homes, our cars, our pets and our lives. We also need to insure our income! If you are working for a living, then you should seriously consider…

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All About Capital Return – Investing for the Future

A few weeks ago we wrote about income return – the return you get while you continue to hold an investment asset. This week, we turn our attention to capital…

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All About Income Return

Last week we discussed the two ways that investments make you money: through capital growth and through an income return. This week, we thought we would do a bit of…

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Not all Returns are Equal

As the financial year chugs along, we think this is a good time to remind our readers that investment rewards come in many shapes and sizes – and some may…

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What is the Target Cash Rate (and Why Does it Matter)?

Last week, for the third month in a row, the Reserve Bank of Australia hiked its target cash rate. The target rate is now 1.35%, up from the all-time low…

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Need Help with Costs of Living? Use your home!

Inflation is starting to bite, and people on income support, such as aged pensioners, have not had their benefits adjusted yet. (Income support benefits are indexed to inflation each December…

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Get your Finances Fully Charged!

The financial year is almost over. Which, of course, means that the new financial year is about to start. This makes right now a great time to develop some better…

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Some Cash from the Commonwealth!

As the clock ticks down to the end of the financial year, there are two small superannuation strategies we wanted to remind you about. Neither will make you a millionaire,…

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Catch Up!

In our last article in May, we emphasized the need to get your super contributions in order before June 30. We discussed the ‘carry forward’ rules for non-concessional contributions. The…

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June 30 is Just Around the Corner

Now that the election is (finally) behind us, it is time to remember that the end of the financial year is just around the corner – as is the start…

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Mario’s Story

Last week, we brought you the happy story of Annabella and her TPD claim. This week, we thought we would tell you Mario’s story.* It is another heart warmer and…

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Annabella’s Story

This week we thought we would share with you the happy story of Annabella.* It is the kind of story we love as Wealth Coach. Annabella is in her mid-30s.…

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Risk and How to Manage It

If you keep an ear out on the investment world, you will hear a lot said about risk. But many people do not really understand risk, so this week, as…

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Rentvesting

Australians like to move home. Especially young Australians. According to the 2016 census data, while almost 20% of Australians moved house in the 12 months prior to the census, Australians…

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Some Assorted Budget Tidbits

This week, we thought we take a look at some of the smaller changes to superannuation that will be of interest to many of our clients. Minimum Pension Super Withdrawals…

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Bad News Can Be Good for the Economy

A driver has two routes to head home after work. Both are exactly the same distance, will take exactly the same time and will use exactly the same amount of…

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Will Increasing Interest Rates ‘Fix’ Inflation?

Unless you are an avowed cyclist, you will probably have noticed what is happening to petrol prices at the moment. They are up. Way up. Prices in most parts of…

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The Need for Insurance

Our heart has been breaking in recent weeks over the massive floods affecting so much of Queensland and NSW. If you or someone you know has been affected, please know…

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Why do we call it the ‘Reserve Bank?’

One of the most prominent players in the Australian economy is the Reserve Bank of Australia – or the RBA. Amongst many other things, the RBA makes the news each…

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How to Find Yourself Singing in the Rain

Last week we discussed how the Governor of the Reserve Bank Phillip Lowe recently recommended that home borrowers ensure that they have a ‘buffer’ against the time when interest rates…

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How to Think Like an RBA Governor

Last week, the Governor of the Reserve Bank Phillip Lowe gave a speech at the National Press Club. As is the tradition, at the end of his set speech, he…

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Some Good News about Covid-19 and Life Insurance

And now for some good news. If you hold a life insurance policy in Australia, policy will almost certainly include health events that are caused by Covid-19. This is especially…

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Welcome to 2022. Let’s start with a huge word of thanks!

As we put pen to paper for the first time this year, much of the country is struggling through an outbreak of Covid. We hope that you and your family…

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Should there be strings attached to the bank of Mum and Dad?

The extraordinary growth in the price of housing in Australia leaves new home buyers increasingly reliant on the ‘bank of Mum and Dad’ to get a foothold in the property…

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Bouncing Back from Covid

Last week’s article about making good decisions in a pandemic gathered some happy feedback. Continuing on with the covid theme, this week we thought we would discuss another phenomenon that…

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Making Good Decisions in a Pandemic

Recently, we came across an article in the Nine/Fairfax press about a family that left the confines of locked down Melbourne to move to unlocked regional Victoria. The family left the city…

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What is a testamentary trust?

This week, we want to discuss a potentially sensitive issue for many people – what to do with your assets after you die. In order not to breach our client’s…

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What’s all this about Inflation?

You might be hearing quite a bit about inflation lately. So, what is it and do we need to be worried? Economists define inflation as a fall in the ‘purchasing…

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100 Taxpayers Walk into a Bar

Every year, with apologies to the radio station JJJ, the Australian Tax Office releases it’s own version of it’s ‘Hottest 100.’ Well, not really. What the ATO actually does is…

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Housing’s Tug of War

This week, we saw another version of the tug of war at play in Australia’s residential property market. House prices have soared in most parts of Australia in the last…

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Income Protection #3 – Nothing Lasts Forever

Changes are happening to income protection insurance. In recent weeks we have discussed two major changes happening in the income protection world. This week, we discuss the third change, which…

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Income Protection #2 – 70% is the new 75%

Changes are happening to income protection insurance. One of the main changes has already taken effect and we discussed it in an article two weeks ago. There are two more major…

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Income Protection #1 – Indemnity, Indemnity, Indemnity!

It has been a while since we wrote about something as ‘every day’ as risk insurance – pandemics will do that to you! Today we will start to address that…

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Changes to the pension asset test will ripple through the economy

On January 1, 2017 the age pension will undergo significant changes. Changes to the assets test, which determines who can receive a pension and how much, could see 166,000 pensioners receive an…

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How wealthy are you compared with other Australians?

It’s human nature to assume our own experiences are typical. When it comes to money, looks or brains, most of us think we’re average – or a perhaps a little…

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Yes, You Can Live a Wealthy Life