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Income protection insurance pays a monthly benefit if you're sick or injured and can't work. It's a helpful option for people in heavy-duty physical jobs with greater risks of injury.
But it's harder for these types of workers to get insured. You can still get a good policy, you just need to be aware that:
An adviser can help you find cover from trusted life insurance brands.
Manual workers in high-risk occupations are exposed to many potential dangers. Common injuries include:
Income protection insurance pays a monthly benefit if you are sick or injured to the point that you cannot work. Typical income protection policies:
Aside from income protection cover, manual workers in high-risk jobs should think about the following policy types:
In the product disclosure statements (PDS) of most insurance providers you will find job classification codes. Higher-risk jobs typically incur extra premium charges, called premium loadings.
Here are some common categories insurers use for manual workers:
Classification | Risk level | Conditions |
---|---|---|
Blue Collar/Manual | Medium |
|
Heavy Blue Collar/Manual | Medium to high |
|
High Risk | High |
|
Uninsurable | Extremely high |
|
To get a better idea of insurability for your particular occupation search for your job type here.
Even two workers with the same job can have very different insurance costs. Insurers consider your age, income and various health factors when setting the cost of your premiums. This includes lifestyle factors like whether you smoke.
Here are some example quotes to give you a basic idea of what workers pay for income protection.
*These are example quotes only based on a 35-year-old male bricklayer in NSW who doesn't smoke. Your actual quotes may vary. Quotes are accurate for June 2017.Workers' compensation covers a lot of high-risk manual workers for injuries on the job. But this form of cover has serious limitations. Consider the following when thinking about income protection:
With income protection insurance you still get paid even if you cannot prove that the injury happened at work.
Bill is a bricklayer. Insurers classify him as “special risk”. This means he can still get income protection insurance, but with special consideration. Bill's insurer asked him for more details about what exactly his job involved, whether he worked on or near roads, at heights, around dangerous materials, and what kind of safety equipment he used.
Because the job was almost entirely heavy lifting, Bill had a high premium. The insurer said that if Bill moved to a less physical and more supervisory role later on he should get in touch to renegotiate his insurance policy.
Roger is a rigger. He was turned down by a couple of insurers before finding one that would offer him a policy. The one that did agree to cover him only did so after confirming that he was trained and fully certified to work at heights and had his rigging licence. Even then, he still had a higher premiums and found some insurers would not offer him insurance for injuries on the job.
Because he had good workplace insurance through an industry association, Roger decided to save money and go with a policy that did not cover workplace accidents. With this as an exclusion, Roger had many more options available.
When comparing income protection policies there are several factors manual workers need to consider. These include:
Picture: Shutterstock
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