Insurance
Insurance and your Cairns mortgage. The unglamorous essentials.
Nobody books a chat to talk about insurance. But the week you take on the biggest debt of your life is exactly when the cover question matters.
Who this is for
Anyone whose debts just got bigger than their savings.
This is for the couple settling on their first home who have never thought about income protection. The family upgrading to a bigger mortgage on one and a half incomes. The business owner whose loan comes with a personal guarantee. In every case the sums changed overnight, and the safety net should be checked against the new numbers.
In the far north there is also the practical stuff. Building insurance in the cyclone belt costs real money and is required by your lender from settlement. Budgeting for it early beats a nasty surprise the week before you get the keys.
How it works
A checklist, not a sales pitch.
When your loan is being set up, Renaee walks through the cover checklist with you. Building insurance arranged and noted for settlement. Contents while you are at it. Then the personal side: if the income paying this mortgage stopped for six months, what actually happens?
For most people the starting point is finding out what they already have. Super funds often include default life and disability cover, and employers sometimes add more. Renaee prompts you to dig out the statements so you can see the gap, if there is one, between what you hold and what your new debt level needs.
Where personal advice is needed, she refers you to a qualified insurance adviser and stays in the loop so the cover lines up with the lending. No policies pushed across the kitchen table, just the question asked at the right time, which is more than most people get.
What Renaee needs from you
The paperwork, in one list
- Your current building or contents policy, if you have one
- Your most recent superannuation statement
- Details of any existing life or income protection cover
- Your new loan amount and repayment details, which Renaee will already have
This one is less about paperwork and more about a conversation. Bring what you can find and go from there.
Common questions
Asked at most kitchen tables
Lenders require building insurance on the property from settlement, because the house is their security. Personal cover like life or income protection is not compulsory, but a lender can insist on building cover before funds are released. Renaee makes sure that box is ticked before settlement day, not discovered on it.
They protect different people. Lenders mortgage insurance protects the lender if you default, and you pay for it when your deposit is small. Loan or mortgage protection style cover is for you and your family, helping repayments continue if illness, injury or death interrupts your income.
Sometimes, and it is genuinely worth checking rather than assuming. Default cover inside super is often a set amount that has no relationship to the size of your new mortgage. Reading your super statement before you take on a big loan is a ten minute job that answers the question properly.
Her job is the lending, and making sure the cover question gets asked at the moment it matters most, when your debts change. For personal advice on life and income cover she connects you with a qualified adviser. [REPLACE: confirm referral arrangement details]
The cover conversation usually happens alongside a home loan or first home purchase. Commercial guarantees are covered under commercial lending.