There is a very common clause in many Life, Critical Illness and Total & Permanent Disablement policies that can give you an increase of 50% on your benefit. This is the Special Events Clause or Benefit which is extremely popular when people are made aware of it. Special Events may include

• Having a child (by birth or legal adoption);

• Becoming married or entering into a civil union;

• Becoming divorced or the dissolution of your civil union;

• Financially supporting a dependent child through a first course of full-time tertiary education;

• The commencement of secondary school for the first time by your child;

• Taking out or increasing a home loan because you have purchased a new home, a new residential investment property, a vacation home, or a bare block of land zoned as residential, or making an extension to a residential property or residential investment property;

• Becoming responsible for the full-time care or payment for long term care of a close relative;

• Receiving an annual salary increase (if you are not self-employed); or

• Experiencing the death of a spouse or de facto partner

If any of these events take place you will likely be able to increase your cover by 50% of its original cover, and you can use it more than once but cannot increase to more than 100% of the original policy.

A quick and simplified/crude example of this:

You have $500,000 of Life Cover in place at the age of 25. At 28 you get married, you require more cover to make sure you partner can be financial stable in the case of your premature death so you exercise the Special Events clause in your policy and without having to go through another health declaration your cover amount is now $750,000.

Four years later your first child is born, your premature death would now cause more financial hardship so you again exercise the Special Events clause, you are now covered for $1,000,000 and you have exhausted all the benefits of that clause.

Beware! A stand-down period may be included in this instance. So you can increase the cover by 50%, and your premiums increase but you cannot claim on that additional amount for the first 6 months (may not always be the case).

There are a range of rules around this so read your policy carefully as they will vary product to product. Otherwise get in touch with me and I can talk you through it.

Keep this in mind