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Group insurance for employees in New Zealand is much less common than typically found overseas. A leading reason for this is our strong public health system, social benefits and ACC which is near unique to New Zealand.
The most common form of group insurance here, is health insurance. Many leading companies provide this for their staff, with benefits of:

• enabling treatment to be done in a timely fashion, avoiding waiting lists, thus returning to work sooner
• saving staff insurance costs through group discounts
  giving a benefit to staff and family members that some couldn’t get themselves due to pre-existing conditions
• staff retention
• healthier work places

One employer who started a scheme this year was blown away by the feed-back from staff. In three cases, a family member was then immediately able to go and get the treatment they had been waiting for, after been on the public waiting list for over a year and all medical costs covered. The employees were able to get their quality of life and dignity back. The staff were so grateful for the life changing benefit.

At Ark, we can help you or your employer to investigate the options for your work place with a number of providers; with groups now starting from as low as 5 members, small to medium businesses can benefit also.

Please contact your adviser to discuss further, we are keen to help.

Rogaine is a sport for the newbie and the gurus, with distances and level of difficulty to suit all players.  It is run all year round with different events around Canterbury and New Zealand.

In Rogaining each team is made up of 2-5 people and you must find as many checkpoints as possible in the time frame available.  Each checkpoint is allocated points (depending on the level of difficulty) and at the end of the time your points are added up and the team with the most points wins.

Teams travel on foot, although bike rogaining is gaining in popularity, navigating by map and compass to find the checkpoints.  You travel at your own pace so is great fun for all the family and on the smaller courses a high level of compass and navigation ability is not required.

Wicked Rogaines offers a 1 or 2-hour option in the evening held on the Port Hills. Also, on the Port Hills is the Spring Rogaine a 3-6 hour and for a real challenge you can venture out into the longer 12-24 hours courses.

If you want to know more on Rogaining please visit the following websites:

https://wickedrogaines.nz/

http://www.rogaine.org.nz/main/HomepageBody.htm

There are a number of insurance covers that offer both Level or Stepped (rate for age) options. Life and Trauma are the main ones we think of. When we take out personal cover there are a number of considerations that our advisers will discuss with you. Firstly, the type of cover must suit your current needs, your age and the purpose it has been designed for. Importantly, it must also be affordable and this is where the services of your adviser are invaluable as they can give you quotes against both stepped and levelled options.

While you will always find that quoted ‘Stepped’ premiums are always cheaper than ‘Level’, the key question that you and your advisor must consider is that of affordability over time. Industry statistics are showing that clients with stepped cover are more often cancelling their cover before they are most likely to claim; due to affordability, as year by year, premiums continue to rise.

The question for you as a client to consider is. . . Do you want to have a satisfactory level of cover as you go through your fifties and sixties and how can this be made affordable and sustainable over time? If you are able to achieve this for both your Life and Trauma cover, then you are more likely to find that once you retire and your monthly income is drastically reduced, that you will have a suitable level of insurance cover that can be maintained and affordable well into retirement, at the very age that you are most likely to need the cover.

Fixing or levelling your Life and Trauma premiums will ensure that you can achieve this. The downside of this is that should you wish to maintain your current level of cover, a Level’ premium will cost you more. Conversely, you can maintain the same premium, but you will have to accept a reduced level of cover.

Thus the final question that you need to consider is how do you manage your risks and costs over time? You will find that at a younger age, the cheaper ‘Stepped’ premiums may be the best option, but at some point you may need to consider switching some ‘Stepped’ premiums to ‘Level’, so that by the time you retire you just have Level affordable premiums left.

It needs thinking about and your adviser is there to help you.

So please do make contact with us and ask for a review.

What is Kidsmart?

Kidsmart is a health insurance policy designed with children in mind. We wanted to create a policy that caters for young people and their needs. Unlike most health insurance, KidSmart provides insurance cover for children, without the child being attached to an adult’s policy. KidSmart is a special policy that parents, grandparents or guardians can gift to their children, grandchildren or dependents without taking out cover for themselves.

What are the key benefits?

• Pay for no more than two children on your policy
• Free for babies up to six months of age- no premiums or underwriting
• Loyalty benefit of $150 towards exercise-activity
• Loyalty benefit for release of tongue/lip tie
• Loyalty benefit to see an audiologist, allergist, paediatrician or respiratory specialist
• General surgery up to $500,000 per year
• Major diagnostic procedures up to $500,000 per year
• Mental health benefit up to $500 per year

Who can be on Kidsmart?
You can add as many children as you like onto KidSmart but they must be added before they turn 16. They can then remain on the KidSmart policy until they turn 25. A legal guardian needs to hold the policy on behalf of dependants but this person won’t be covered by the policy.

How can someone gift a KidSmart policy?
If someone wants to gift the policy, then they just need to set up the payment details accordingly. The legal guardian on the policy will still be ultimately responsible for ensuring payment of premiums.

What is the cost?
The cost for KidSmart hospital and surgical base plan is just $24 a month. The specialist module can be added for just $8 per month.

Win a $100 voucher with Sleep Store
We have partnered with Sleep Store for the launch of KidSmart. Anyone who you sign up can go into the draw to win one of two $100 vouchers for Sleep Store. Just enter the promo code at the time of application. Your promo code is AV0317. Entries need to be in by 31 May 2017.

Donald Trump’s confirmation as the next US president is now sinking in to a bemused world, but what does this mean for investment markets?

At the time of writing, newspaper headlines are still talking about markets “plunging”, although this turned out to be far from the truth. Many markets saw a short, sharp drop (blink and you missed it) before quickly recovering. The United States share market rose 1{07fabe19bcb0a5feb753c282254629c4216624d1bab5b4aa05d46841f923b8d4} on the day.

Heading into the election, investment markets have preferred Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump, with Hillary generally seen as more a “business as usual” outcome than Trump’s policies. But while Trump has his share of controversial policies, we need to remember that the United States political machine is not a one-man system. Split responsibilities between the US senate, House of Representatives, and executive mean that there are checks and balances in place, with the more extreme outcomes likely to be revised or watered down. Already, we have also seen signs of a more “presidential” Donald Trump in his acceptance speech, than the days of political campaigning.

The general theme of his policies has some positives for the US economy. It’s likely that we’ve (finally!) seen the end of “austerity” in the US, with promised spending on infrastructure to come – whether or not this is fully implemented. This is supportive for share markets, even at the cost of some upward pressure on interest rates, which will be guiding our decision making on fixed interest investments. We will likely see more clarity on international policies in the months to come, with pre-election promises better seen as a general tone than hard details.

How much does politics matter anyway?

Stepping back, while policymakers do matter, in general it is helpful to remember that economics “trumps” politicians. United States shares have risen over 100{07fabe19bcb0a5feb753c282254629c4216624d1bab5b4aa05d46841f923b8d4} during the past seven years, but largely not because Barack Obama was in office. Larger market forces (a gradual global economic recovery, and lower interest rates) have driven the outcome. At the other end of the spectrum, Australia has gone through five prime ministers during Obama’s two presidential terms – and the Australian economy has still grown steadily.

While investment markets were initially rattled by Trump’s victory, ultimately, most events like this tend to run the risk of distracting from a long term approach to investing. For most investors, what happens over 5-10 years matters a lot more than what matters day to day. Keeping an eye firmly on that goal is the most important thing that most of us can do.

Portfolio Update
Most investment funds pleasingly have positive gains still in place over the past 6-12 months, despite a small decline in October and November, heading into the election.
Our actively managed share portfolios have continued to outperform the NZ, Australian and global share markets over the past three months, while market returns have been weaker.
We have increased the allocation to less expensive “value” stocks in global share markets. This decision is so far off to a positive start and we expect it to help support returns over the next 3-5 years.

Your home is your castle. But what would happen if you lost your job or became disabled due to injury or illness? How long could you continue to pay your mortgage? Life insurance isn’t enough. Anyone who has a mortgage should consider mortgage protection insurance. The primary difference between mortgage protection insurance is that it covers your mortgage repayments and Income protection insurance covers your annual wages.

No offsets

Unlike normal Income Protection, there will be NO income offsets on the mortgage repayment amount insured. This means you could receive both ACC and your mortgage repayments while you are off work – potentially seeing you receive more money whilst off work than when you were at work!

Optional redundancy cover

Most Mortgage Protection policies offer an option to insure yourself against redundancy. Income protection rarely pays for loss of income if the reason for the lost income is unemployment due to redundancy

Recent changes

You don’t need a mortgage to use this benefit anymore – this is an option for people renting. They will cover up to 40{07fabe19bcb0a5feb753c282254629c4216624d1bab5b4aa05d46841f923b8d4} of your income, recognizing people may still have to be paying rent.

We welcome you to contact your adviser, to ask if this would be a suitable option for your situation and we will be happy to assist.

Children‘s trauma insurance cover is designed to ease the financial pressure on families.

Benefits are often spent on medical treatment, rehabilitation, replacing income if a parent takes time off work, or to take the family on holiday, during what is often a very stressful time for them.

Unfortunately, we can’t prevent childhood sicknesses. However, additional money may minimise the financial stress you and your family may suffer, especially if you have to cease work to be with your child.

If you have children don’t miss out on this opportunity.

Generally premiums start off low and increase over time. As you get into your mid to late 40’s the premiums start to take off and continue to increase as you are more likely to suffer from cancer, stroke, heart attack or even premature death. This is called stepped premiums.

Stepped Premiums are good when you need a high level of cover for the short term i.e. you have a large mortgage, have children that are still dependent on you financially and need affordable premiums. As you get older it is important to review these options and look at levelling some or all of your cover.

Level Premiums are fixed for specified period of time. Premiums start off higher than stepped premiums but quickly become less expensive as they are guaranteed never to increase due to age. Over the long term Level Premiums will save you thousands of dollars on your insurance premiums. It does require long term thinking and a commitment upfront ie you are paying more than you have to now (opportunity cost) but you will see the benefit in the long term. As shown in the graph:

In the example the insured would have paid a staggering $414,000 less in premiums by choosing level over stepped by age 79.
Level premiums are a good fit for those that would like to keep some level of life insurance after age 60 that is affordable. Reasons for this could include debt repayment, retirement savings boost, legacy/inheritance, tax liabilities, estate liquidity, funeral expenses etc.

Please contact us if you are interested in discussing this further.