Australians would prefer to spend extra income dining out rather than taking out or upgrading life insurance to protect their lifestyle and financial commitments, according to a nationwide poll conducted for TAL, Australia’s leading specialist life insurer.
In fact, given extra money to spend most people would prefer to do almost anything other than enhance their financial protection in the event of illness, accident or death, preferring shopping, holidays, the latest gadgets and deleveraging instead.
Nevertheless, 95% of Australians have inadequate insurance in the event they could not earn an income (Lifewise/NATSEM).
The things most Australians would do if they suddenly received 10% more pay would be to build up their savings (58%), pay off bills (30%) and the mortgage (28%) and fund a holiday (28%).
Nationally, 85% of people would put extra cash towards ‘deleveraging’ their financial assets (this figure represents a combination of paying off debt, bills and credit cards and building savings).
Jim Minto, CEO of TAL said: “We undertook this survey as part of our efforts to continue to better understand Australians’ perceptions and behaviour towards life insurance and societal changes. It is clear that that the deleveraging taking place since the GFC is still a priority for consumers.
“We know most people don’t have enough insurance in place to meet their commitments and maintain their and their family’s lifestyle should their ability to earn an income stop. These figures reveal that most people would rather do almost anything other than start life insurance or enhance what is probably inadequate cover.”
“At TAL, we are constantly trying to understand why so many Australians are reluctant to insure themselves properly. As an industry, we need to focus on ways of better demonstrating and communicating the value of the forms of life insurance – income protection, permanent disability cover, lump sum upon death and critical illness lump sum.”
