Josh and Katie have put their house on the market, not because they want to, but because they have to. They are moving in with Katie’s parents with their twin boys Jye and Jack and their dogs. It’s going to be a long year.
Josh is a chippy, a carpenter who built their house with his own hands and some help from a couple of tradie mates he used to play football with. For a long while, he and Katie were living the dream – they had just put in a pool for the kids, paid for by a redraw on their home loan, and Josh had recently updated his work ute – a HiLux of course. Katie had gone back to work part-time once the boys had started school and their household cash flow was finally starting to look a little less tight.
Some years ago, when he was still playing footy, one of Josh’s mates, Stevo, had hurt himself when making that final lunge for the line, breaking a leg which forced him off work for 6 months. The team had rallied round of course, but it hadn’t been enough to let Stevo keep his house. Josh had immediately taken out some income protection cover to make sure it didn’t happen to him. At the time the premiums were about $1200, around the same as he was paying to insure his ute.
After Josh played his last game, he decided he didn’t need the insurance anymore, and so let it lapse. There is no way he would have made the same decision about his ute insurance, nor the contents insurance which protects his beloved 75 inch 4K Ultra HD television – you never know who might want to pinch that. For the record, his contents insurance premium is also about $1200 per year, after all, he has a bunch of tools in his shed.
Three weeks ago, he and the boys were kicking a footy in the backyard and one of the conversion attempts landed on his roof. After getting the ladder off the racks on his ute, Josh was about halfway up when one of the dogs knocked little Jye over causing him to squeal. The distraction was enough for Josh to lose concentration and he slipped and fell, only about 8 feet, but enough to break both bones in his lower left leg and dislocate his ankle. He tried to break his fall with his right arm and damaged his wrist. Surgery, pinning and plating, plaster cast, off work for 6 months. Katie is not happy at the prospect of moving back in with her mother.
Income Protection Insurance would not have relieved all of the pain, but it could have helped.
Don’t be like Josh.