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TAL Life Insurance Review
With TAL life insurance, you can get a comparatively high funeral benefit of $25,000 and there's no maximum cover limit.
No limit
Maximum Cover
75
Maximum Entry Age
Terminal Illness Benefit
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Details
| Product Name | TAL Life Insurance |
|---|---|
| Maximum Cover | No limit |
| Terminal Illness Benefit | |
| Funeral Benefit | $25,000 |
| Guaranteed Renewability | |
| Cooling-off (days) | 30 |
| Online Quote |
TAL insurance is one of Australia's biggest insurers with over 4 million members and over 150 years of insurance experience. Learn about the key features you can expect from a TAL life insurance policy, and how it stacks up against other leading brands.
Our verdict: TAL life insurance
- TAL offers good flexibility: a premium waiver may apply in some circumstances.
- What's more, you can add TDP, Trauma and Child benefit to your cover if you wish – most of the 19 brands we reviewed didn't offer all three cover add-ons.
- Recent data from Moneysmart showed that TAL had a claims acceptance rate of 85% for death cover bought directly through an insurer. This was below the industry average of 90%.
What products are offered by TAL?
TAL offers 3 core types of life insurance products to its customers: life insurance, critical illness insurance and total and permanent disability insurance. Its policies fall under TAL Accelerated Protection, and can be bought through an adviser or directly through TAL.
TAL also lets you tailor your policy to suit your needs by either choosing a standalone policy, choosing one or more policies and then adding benefits and linking to other plans, or choosing to structure your life insurance through a superannuation plan.
Read a more detailed review on:
Life Insurance
Accelerated Protection life insurance will pay out a lump sum in the event of the policyholder's death or the diagnosis of a terminal illness. The main purpose of this type of cover is to help provide for your family after you've gone, taking care of your family's finances so they can focus on dealing with their loss.
TAL Accelerated Protection life insurance includes the following features and benefits:
- Death benefit: A lump sum payment of the nominated benefit amount if the policyholder dies.
- Terminal illness benefit. The nominated benefit amount can be paid out early if the policyholder is terminally ill and not expected to live longer than 12 months.
- Advanced payment benefit: 10% of the benefit amount (up to a maximum of $25,000) can be paid in advance to help your family deal with day-to-day finances.
- Repatriation benefit: The advanced payment limit is increased to $35,000 if the policyholder dies overseas.
- Inflation protection benefit: Your cover automatically increases every year in line with the Consumer Price Index.
- Premium freeze benefit: Your premiums stay the same by reducing your cover each year. This is available on stepped premium policies only and only after the policyholder's 30th birthday.
- Guaranteed future insurability benefit: This means you'll be able to increase your cover after significant life events (for example, getting married or having a baby) without having to provide additional health information.
- Other benefits: These include a financial planning benefit, a grief counselling benefit and a child's critical illness benefit.
TAL also offers the following optional benefits:
- Premium relief option: This option lets you waive your premiums if sickness or injury mean you are unable to work for at least three months.
- Business insurance option: This option lets you increase your insurance without providing additional health information after a valid business event, such as an increase in your share of business ownership or an increase in the level of a business loan for which you are a guarantor.
Critical Illness Insurance
TAL Accelerated Protection critical illness insurance pays out a lump sum if you are diagnosed with a specified medical condition like cancer, heart attack or stroke. The benefit will be paid even if you're still able to work, and there are two types of plans available: Standard and Premier.
Some of the key benefits of the Premier plan include:
- Advancement benefit: This benefit provides cover for immediate expenses if a certain event happens, for example if you lose hearing in one ear or are diagnosed with partial Alzheimer's disease.
- Female critical illness benefit: This benefit will be paid for conditions like pregnancy complications and congenital abnormalities.
- Needlestick benefit: This benefit is available if you work in certain occupations and suffer occupationally-acquired hepatitis B or C.
Benefits featured in both the Standard and Premier critical illness insurance plans include:
- Critical illness benefit: This benefit is a lump sum payment of up to $2,000,000 for a range of conditions, such as heart attack, stroke, dementia, blindness, cancer and kidney failure.
- Paralysis support benefit: The lump sum payment is doubled to a maximum of $2,000,000 if the policyholder becomes paralysed.
- Death buy-back benefit: You can repurchase your life insurance after the payment of 100% of the critical illness benefit, paralysis support benefit or TPD benefit (if applicable). This benefit only applies if critical illness insurance or TPD insurance (if applicable) is attached or linked to life insurance.
Optional benefits on critical illness insurance plans include:
- Critical illness reinstatement benefit: This lets you repurchase your critical illness insurance after you've been paid a critical illness benefit, advancement benefit, needlestick benefit or female critical illness benefit.
- Double critical illness option: When critical illness insurance is attached to life insurance, this benefit means that payment of the critical illness benefit will not reduce your life insurance and future premiums will be waived.
- Premium relief option: This option lets you waive your premiums if sickness or injury mean you are unable to work for at least three months.
- Business insurance option: This option lets you increase your critical illness insurance without medical underwriting after a valid business event, such as an increase in your share of business ownership or an increase in the level of a business loan for which you are a guarantor.
TPD Insurance
TAL Accelerated Protection TPD insurance pays a lump sum benefit if you are totally and permanently disabled. Benefits of this type of insurance include:
- TPD benefit: A lump sum payment of up to $3,000,000 if you become totally and permanently disabled.
- Accommodation benefit: TAL will reimburse the cost of accommodation for your immediate family member of up to $250 per day if the policyholder is confined to bed more than 100km away from home.
TAL's TPD insurance policies also feature the following optional benefits:
- Death buy-back option: You can repurchase your life insurance after the payment of 100% of TPD insurance. Only available when TPD insurance is linked to life insurance.
- Double TPD option: Available when TPD insurance is attached to life insurance, this benefit means that payment of the TPD benefit will not reduce your life insurance and future premiums will be waived.
- Premium relief option: This option lets you waive your premiums if sickness or injury mean you are unable to work for at least three months.
- Business insurance option: This option lets you increase your critical illness insurance without medical underwriting after a valid business event, such as an increase in your share of business ownership or an increase in the level of a business loan for which you are a guarantor.
Age eligibility
| Accelerated Protection Plan | Entry age |
|---|---|
| Life cover | Between 16 and 75 |
| Income protection cover | Between 19 and 60 |
| TPD | Between 16 and 62 |
| Critical Illness insurance | Between 16 and 62 |
You must also be an Australian resident to apply.
Applying for TAL life insurance cover:
Once you've read and fully understood your chosen policy's Product Disclosure Statement (PDS), you can apply with an adviser over the phone or directly with TAL.
An adviser can help you find cover from trusted life insurance brands.
- Get competitive quotes from multiple brands
- Lower rate of declined claims (according to ASIC)
- Save time and effort
TAL life insurance - pros and cons
Still wondering if TAL is right for you? Here are the main pros and cons summarised:
Pros
- Award-winning provider for customer satisfaction and quality of cover
- Choice of getting cover with an adviser or directly with TAL
- Wide range of cover types offered which can be bundled to suit your needs
Cons
- Premium rates can be changed at any time (applicable to all policies)
- Policy fee applies on top of premium
What are some of the key exclusions of TAL?
This will depend on the policy – below are some of the exclusions you will find. Note: this is not an exhaustive list and we'd recommend you read each policy's Product Disclosure Statement (PDS) so that you know what you'll be insured for.
Exclusions under the Accelerated Protection plan
A range of general exclusions apply to each Accelerated Protection policy from TAL. Your Critical Protection life insurance claim will not be paid if the claim is caused by an intentional self-inflicted act by the life insured:
- Within 13 months of the policy start date
- Within 13 months of cover being increased (but only in respect to that increase)
- Within 13 months of the policy being reinstated
No Accelerated Protection critical illness insurance claim will be paid if:
- It is caused by an intentional self-inflicted act by the life insured
- The condition was diagnosed or became apparent within three months of the policy starting, or of cover being increased or reinstated (this exclusion does not apply to all critical illness events)
- The life insured does not survive for at least 14 days following the critical illness event
Your claim under Accelerated Protection TPD insurance will not be paid if:
- It is caused by an intentional self-inflicted act by the life insured
- It is caused by pregnancy, unless disability continues for longer than three months after the pregnancy ends
Other specific exclusions apply to income protection and business expense insurance, so read the Accelerated Protection PDS for more information.
Why consider TAL protection plans?
TAL is a trusted insurer with a long history in the insurance industry. The company has been helping people get the insurance cover they need since 1869.
TAL began life as the insurance company of the ordinary people with the backing of the New Zealand government. It has never forgotten its roots as it continues insuring the most vulnerable in the community who recognise it as being a friend, not just a business.
As a specialist life insurance insurer, TAL has a range of policies to suit people from all walks of life and aims to help make the often-confusing subject of life insurance more accessible to everyday Australians. The company's core purpose is simple: to meet the life insurance needs of as many Australians as possible.
