Just when you find out that relaxing is good for your health, you find out that ‘sitting’ is not one of the ways to do it.

You can read all about it here and here.  And to help you cut to the chase quickly, here are the two conclusions…

Study 1: Sitting and watching TV shortens your life by 22 minutes for every hour you spend glued to the screen.  This means people who watch TV on average 3 hours a day are likely to shorten their life expectancy by 2 to 3 years.

Study 2: People who sit more than 10 hours per day have a 48% higher risk of dying than people who sit for less than 4 hours per day. Since most people with desk jobs (like me) already sit around 6 to 8 hours per day at the office, that doesn’t leave much for driving and relaxing at home without taking your life into your hands.

OK.  So sitting is not only bad for you, it also appears to be a good predictor of how long you’ll live…. Which brings us to life insurance, which is what this blog’s about… remember?

You see, if we know that sitting is one of the factors that influences how long you’ll live, then surely this should also influence what you pay for life insurance. If you’re deemed to be a big-time sitter, you’re headed for an early grave and you should be charged more for your life insurance. Conversely, if you spend most of your time on your feet (eg a builder) then you should be charged less for your life insurance.

Here’s an idea

On your life insurance application, you’re typically asked if you participate in dangerous pastimes such as sky diving, base jumping, rock climbing, scuba diving and so on, because these pastimes are likely to reduce your lifespan.

So how about adding another dangerous pastime to this list… like ‘sitting’?

“Nothing?” Well that’s my answer… but of course, that’s just me because I’m probably naive.

However, insurance adviser Andrew Smith claims that the six steps to ‘get a girl’ also work a treat when it comes to selling life insurance. See the original article here.

According to Smith:

1. “Make her laugh – Smith says if you make your clients laugh, a lot of barriers are broken down.”

2. “Get her talking about herself – Smith believes once you start listening to a client, they open up more.”

3. “Be confident – don’t be the pussy cat… be the lion”, is Smiths advice. “If you are on a date and you’re not confident in your own abilities, the date will fail.”

4. “Be friends first. The girl will be expecting an ulterior motive to your date.  Be informative.  Smile. Be friendly. In insurance we are only after one thing really and in our terms… it is the sale.”

5. “Find out what’s important to her. It’s time for the “TED questions”. “Tell me more about your family?  Describe what would happen to them if you failed to come home from work next Monday”.

6. “Take her out for ice-cream. Sweetness releases endorphins and a feel good factor, the thought of which, makes a girl smile.” Every time Smith has a client he gives them a box of chocolates.

There are valuable lessons here for everyone.

When you’re next approached by an insurance salesman, you’ll know the drill by heart. Just hope it doesn’t get broken.

Or if you’re not into being seduced… get your insurance online…

September is Cervical Screening Awareness Month – the aim of which is to raise awareness about the benefits of cervical screening.

Why is cervical screening important to the world of life insurance? Because any positive action that individuals can take that contributes to detecting cancer at an early stage will ultimately result in less people dying from cancer.

Consider how cervical screening changes the odds…

So, with regular screening, women are 6 times less likely to either develop or die from cervical cancer.

Conclusions

• Get screened… sounds like a no-brainer!
• Take a look at cancer insurance… what have you got to lose???

(For more info see NZ National Screening Website http://www.nsu.govt.nz)

Today is Daffodil Day.

Daffodil Day is about raising the public’s awareness of Cancer and donating to the Cancer Society.

For us life insurance guys, cancer is always top of mind, because cancer is such a significant disease and one that many people insure for.

Insurance won’t stop you getting cancer, unfortunately. But it can help to make your life easier or the lives of your family and dependants. People take out life insurance so that if they die from cancer, their family can survive financially. Some people also take out Cancer Cover which pays them a cash lump sum, tax free, in the event that they are diagnosed with cancer and survive. The money can be extremely helpful in allowing sufferers to restructure their lives, pay medical bills, pay off the mortgage or help make up lost income.

See Cancer Cover online.

Cancer statistics in New Zealand are pretty scary

·1 in 6 people will be diagnosed with cancer between the ages of 30 and 64.

·Cancer is the leading cause of death in New Zealand, accounting for almost 30 percent of deaths, slightly more than non-congenital heart diseases.

·For females, the biggest cancer killer is breast cancer (17% of all female cancer deaths)

·For males, the biggest cancer killer is lung cancer (21% of male cancer deaths) however the highest ‘incidence’ of cancer is prostate cancer (25% of cancer cases diagnosed).

Click here to go to the Cancer Society website.

Following all the recent New Zealand media hype surrounding the recent banning of Kronic it seems there are a lot of Kiwi’s who don’t mind the occasional joint – even if it’s the synthetic version. Cannabis It is the most widely used of all recreational drugs today, and is used by people of all walks of life. According to The United Nations Office on Drug and Crimes (UNODC), more than 8% of Kiwi’s use cannabis on a regular basis. That’s approximately 320,000 regular puffers out there. That same agency tells us that of people aged 16 to 64, about 13.4% have an occasional joint. By my reckoning, that would be approximately 400, 000 occasionally mellow Kiwi’s.

Which begs the question, does the disclosure of cannabis use make one ineligible for life insurance?

Good news for potheads… dope use on its own is not something that will make you ineligible for a life insurance policy.

Most life insurance questionnaires ask whether you have used any illegal drugs in the past. If the answer is yes, you still should be able to qualify for life insurance.  For example, the online application process at www.pinnaclelife.co.nz allows social users of cannabis to purchase life cover without a price loading. The proviso being that the usage is occasional. Most insurers will ask you to fill in supplementary questionnaire on your drug use and heavy users of cannabis can expect to incur additional loadings if usage is deemed to be moderate or excessive.

The most important principle in any life insurance application is to ensure full disclosure at the time of application so the policy can’t be challenged when the time comes to make a claim. Understandably, when it comes to drug use, applicants may be hesitant to supply information about personal use for fear of reprisal. However, any health information provided to an insurer cannot be provided to any government agency or other persons without the express permission of the applicant.

So if you’re applying for a policy… tell all about your use of drugs and then chill out; your high time secrets are entirely safe with a trustworthy insurer.

A letter received by Pinnacle Life from Lynn…

Dear Sir

This letter is to advise you of the great service we received by your staff when it was decided after hearing you on 1ZB to enquire about transferring our Insurance to save 20% on our premiums.

Initially by calling your 0800 number I had the pleasure of talking to Anna, she was excellent in giving me all the information and promised to post the necessary paperwork so we could set this up. The next day the information was received, just shows the dedication in service she had shown. Details were returned and once again Anna telephoned to say it had been received and she would pass it onto your underwriters.

The underwriters did take some time to process and I was concerned that we might not make the deadline to get the first years cover for 25% less. Then came Bill Kim with amazing service advising he was processing the policy. This was only a few days before the deadline. When asked if the policy was accepted by us would be still be in time. He offered to fax the relevant papers through and advised if these were faxed back to be received by the 29th June he would be able to offer the above.
He kept me informed by telephone where we up too. I had earlier asked what time he finished work and he advised 5pm, it was 5:15pm when he phoned me on the 28th to make sure I had received the faxed documents. This was the best service I have had in many years, I have telephoned them both (Bill and Anna) to thank them very much for the wonderful service but I wanted you to know what great staff you have and would very much appreciate if you could congratulate them both on giving your clients a wonderful experience and both are a credit to you and your company.

Yours faithfully
Lynn Waters, Pakuranga
1st July 2011

Something old, something new.

Early last year we noticed a research article that said “people treated unfairly at work and who suffer in silence have twice the risk of a heart attack, or dying of heart disease”.

Conversely, if you get really mad at the office once in a while, shout at your boss, yell at your colleagues and generally blow a gasket… you’ll have a far better chance of living longer (and losing your job, obviously)!

Read about this research here in one of our earlier blogs.

Now there’s more!

New research (reported here) from Tel Aviv University, Israel indicates that having supportive work colleagues helps you live longer!

Dr Arie Shirom and her team studied the medical records of more than 800 workers who had been tracked for 20 years, from 1988 to 2008. The research found that a good relationship with co-workers had an impact on mortality risk, and was most pronounced between the ages of 38 and 43. (Too bad this doesn’t affect me any longer).

The researchers found that they could strongly predict the risk of dying (from any cause) from how well a person was socially integrated and connected in the workplace. They also found that mortality was not determined by how supportive their boss was, but rather by how supportive their work colleagues were.

So, why is this interesting to us in the life insurance business??

Because, when you take out life insurance, the insurance company is in effect ‘taking a bet’ on how long you’ll live.

If you die earlier than expected, it’s bad for business. That’s why we’re a much happier bunch when our policyholders live a long, long time. That’s how life insurance companies make a tidy profit.  (And living longer isn’t too bad for policyholders either).

So, will this new research change the way life insurers offer life insurance?

Maybe life insurance companies should ask you on their application forms how supportive your colleagues are at work?  If your answer is that your colleagues are grumpy and unsupportive, you’ll be charged higher premiums on your life insurance… and your life will be shorter, obviously!

…this blog post re-run due to popular demand…

Ok, it’s travel insurance not life insurance.

But when insurance companies pull out the old ‘weasel clauses’ to get off paying what should be a legitimate claim, it gives all insurance companies (including life insurance) a bad name.

I’m doing a lot of travelling around the world lately and on a recent flight from South Aftrica to London, someone in “luggage handling” prised open my bag, went through my belongings and stole my camera.

Ok. No problem. Isn’t this the reason that I took out travel insurance with Travelsure??

But alas… my claim was rejected because I did not report the theft to the police in London within 24 hours as stated in the policy – I was referred to the small print on page 13 and also somewhere on page 17.

How stupid I was not to open my bag and check what was missing right there on the floor next to the luggage carousel. And never mind that I didn’t notice the camera was stolen… because the thieves left the camera bag… which I opened only 72 hours later.

You see, with Travelsure, ‘reasonable circumstances’ that mitigated against my notifying the authorities within 24 hours are irrelevant.

It seems that Travelsure couldn’t wait to dig out the weasel clauses and do away with my claim! Seriously efficient they are… my claim was rejected in 5 minutes.

“That’s insurance for you” – people will say. ‘No latitude’… ‘no discretion’… ‘no allowance for the circumstances of each case’… ‘quick to take your money’… but full of excuses when you have a claim…

So how about this tagline then?…

Travelsure…. taking the sure out of travel…

Hands up all those who believe the Rapture will happen tomorrow?

A lot of people are talking about the Rapture taking place on 21 May 2011… a prediction made by 89-year-old Harold Camping, a retired civil engineer from California who founded a religious movement called Family Radio Worldwide and has been broadcasting his prediction around the world.

The ‘Rapture’ is the belief that Christ will bring the faithful into paradise prior to a period of tribulation on earth that precedes the end of time. My limited understanding of this is that several million people will instantly ascend to heaven on 21 May 2011, leaving the rest of us (I’m assuming I’ll be in the overlooked group) to our own devices, to face this hell on earth.

But what I’m beginning to wonder is whether or not the life insurance industry has missed a major opportunity – insuring people and their families against the financial risk of the Rapture.

Welcome to “Rapture Insurance”!!

I mean, to all intents and purposes, if you are one of those people chosen for the Rapture, you’re possibly going to leave some or all of your family financially devastated. And that’s exactly what life insurance is for.

If we in the ‘life industry’ were thinking on our feet, we’d have designed Rapture Insurance; insurance that takes care of your family after you’re raptured away to heaven.

From the insurance industry’s perspective, rapture insurance would be the ultimate insurance gamble. (Dare I say it… it’s like earthquake insurance).

You see, if the Rapture doesn’t happen (unlikely because we all know it will) then all insurance companies would stand to make an untold fortune. On the other hand, if the Rapture does take place (as we all expect), then insurance companies would have a hell of a time paying all those claims… no pun intended

It’s not too late.

If you’re really worried you’ll be in heaven by sundown tomorrow, go to www.pinnaclelife.co.nz and get life cover in just 10 minutes. You never know.

When I saw the statistic that 632,920 New Zealanders were injured in their homes last year I thought there must be some mistake… maybe an extra zero. But nope, the number is correct.

With a total population of only 4.4mil people in New Zealand, this means around 1 in 7 people are injured at home each year. That’s like 5 to 10 people in every street in New Zealand ended up in a doctor’s waiting room or a hospital because of a home accident.

However, if we drill a little deeper into these numbers we notice that 621 people died in home accidents last year…  more than the total number of people killed in road accidents and workplace accidents combined!!

So what does this mean for life insurance?

Well… typically, if you engage in dangerous pastimes such as abseiling, rock climbing, sky diving or hunting, or if you are employed in a dangerous occupation such as working on an oil rig, you’ll be charged a higher price for your life insurance.

It sounds like we should be adding one more dangerous occupation/pastime to the list… staying at home!