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Showing posts from January, 2019

When was the last time you reviewed your health cover?

Odds are it’s been a while since you looked over your health insurance cover. It’s understandable - there are over 40,000 products in the market and premiums regularly go up. It can seem confusing and expensive, but there are still plenty of reasons to review it more regularly. First, reviewing your cover ensures you’re paying for the right things. Like your finances, your health changes as life changes and your health insurance should reflect it. If you review your health cover every year, you’ll have a greater understanding of its benefits, as well as making sure it’s keeping up with your changing needs. In addition to ensuring you’ve got the right cover for your situation, reviewing your cover may also save you money by making sure you’re only paying for what’s important to you. And it’s a valuable exercise to review your Health and suite of Life Insurance Products all together. If you do decide to switch, find an option that gives you confidence that you’re covered

What will 19 hold for you?

Most of us are starting to think about getting back into work mode – or perhaps you are back at work already. Don’t worry, this is not going to be one of those “let’s look back over the last 12 months” chats where we remember which celebrities are no longer or who won major sporting events. What should you expect from the next 12 months? Well, nobody knows.  However, there is one certainty.  Markets will go up and markets will go down.   Consider this.  The Australian equities market is still approximately 18% below where it was 11 years ago so there’s plenty of upside just to get back to where it was.  In terms of your superannuation, you need to consider your time horizon, i.e . how long will it be invested for before you can access it. For a 35-year-old, they face another 30 years before they can access their super at age 65. Not only that, once they do retire at 65, they’re not going to take their super and spend it in one go.   They’re going to use it to pr

Global Pension Time Bomb

The world’s ageing population has recently been described by the World Economic Forum as the financial equivalent of climate change.  A study of the world’s 6 largest global pension schemes (essentially the aged pension that governments pay those who have retired) in the US, UK, Japan, Netherlands, Canada and Australia found that by the year 2050 there will be a shortfall between what needs to be paid and what governments can afford of some $224 trillion. Governments simply won’t be able to afford to fund retirees via age pensions.  The main reason for this is the world’s ageing population, there’s an ever-reducing number of younger people in the work force generating income and taxes to fund the pension schemes that are designed to look after people when they retire. Traditionally, the three stages people would go through is they would become educated, work for 40 years or so, retire at 60- 65 and live off the pension until they died at say 70-75 at best. More recent