Think you have to be stuck at home before you can claim on income protection? Think again...

Last week I met with one of my friends from Aviva, who wanted to tell me about some of the features of their insurance policies. An interesting feature which stuck out for tradies was the partial benefit payment on income protection, which means you can make a claim even if you're still able to work.

What does that mean? With most income protection policies, you have to be totally unable to work for a period of time (often 30 days) before they'll start paying benefits. With the Aviva policy however, they will pay a partial benefit in cases where you can work a bit, but not at your full potential.

How does that help you? Well say you're a carpenter with an apprentice. You're mucking around at home on the weekend and trip over, breaking your wrist in the process and ending up in a plaster cast for the next six weeks.

Whilst you can't do much manual work yourself during that time, you can still be onsite guiding your apprentice and doing tasks which don't require both hands. You're still getting some income, but it's only a portion of what you would get it you were at full capacity.

With many income protection policies, you may not receive any benefits because you are still able to go to work and fulfil some of your duties. But with the Aviva policy you would receive a partial benefit to make up the shortfall in your income, which would continue until you were back at full capacity (or until the benefit period ends).

In this scenario, having the right policy could mean the difference between getting a partial benefit and getting no benefit at all.

If you'd like to check if your current policy has this feature, please contact us today.

Call us today on 1800 744 482 or get a free online quote

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