One in five people who do not believe in life insurance say it’s because it’s too expensive, a survey from TAL has revealed.
In the latest research commissioned by TAL to uncover consumer behaviours and attitudes towards life insurance, the insurer found that 33% of Aussies don’t believe life insurance can protect their life and dreams. Of those, 22% said the reason for this belief was that they could not afford the level of cover they wanted.
The main reason given by those who did not believe in life insurance was that ‘money isn’t everything’ (34%). A further 25% said they did not have cover because their financial obligations will be out of their hands once they die.
Those Australians who held a mortgage were the most likely to believe in financial protection (74%) followed by Generation X (73%) and those who consider themselves to be risk takers (71%).
Outgoing TAL Group CEO, Jim Minto, said the findings may demonstrate that self-aware Australians are more likely to believe in life insurance because they are likely to have invested heavily in their dreams and want to protect them.
…too many of us are mistakenly linking life insurance with protecting your money
“Those who have a mortgage or home or who have worked hard to save money are conscious that they need to protect their dreams in order to avoid losing everything should their income stop due to injury or illness.”
He added that those who think life insurance is not an effective way of protecting the things they’ve created in life, and their future plans, may not be considering the full financial ramifications on they find themselves unable to work due to illness or injury.
“A large lump sum or other forms of payment can help tide us through difficult times and no one can really dispute that. So it may be that too many of us are mistakenly linking life insurance with protecting your money, when in reality it is about something deeper – protecting your family’s ultimate wellbeing and your future dreams not just for yourself but those who rely on you,” he said.
In general if you have a high Insurance IQ (appreciate the need) then your overall intelligence is also high, which is often commensurate with your income; you are on the right side of the financial bell curve and you can afford premiums or are prepared to pay them. Looking at possible future events and covering the risks goes hand in glove with intelligence and income. I know this sound like its come out of the Nazi Master Race playbook, but that’s how life is. Those that cannot afford insurance need it the most. The same bunch of life insurance knockers also fail to adequately insure their homes and contents.
They also don’t have private health insurance. The list goes on. If insurance were for free then they would find some excuse not to have it.
On the subject of insurance being “too expensive”:
Even if every man and woman was guaranteed an income, say of $100,000 a year, one will still find the same respondents responding in the same way… “It’s too expensive!”
It is time for the public to be truthful to themselves and this is where we, the insurance agents, have to lift our game and to do a better job of selling the whole concept of insurance.
Finally how do we do a better job of the selling when there is a rampantly growing attitude of NOT seeing ourselves as salesmen and women.
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