Your Biggest Asset Might Not Be What You Think It Is

If you needed to name your three biggest assets what would they be?

1.

2.

3.

Now I can’t see what you have written, but there is a good chance you have put down your house, your car, and probably your savings. But most people never think of their ability to earn money as an asset or in other words your salary.

Joe is a 35-year-old man. His wife is at home with the children full time and Joe brings in the pay cheque. One day while Joe is fishing he suffers quite a serious accident. The medical problems Joe gets are so severe; he is no longer able to work. In fact, he must now go on a disability pension from the government.

As Joe’s disability cheque is the basic wage, Joe’s wife must now go back to work fulltime. However, Joe is unable to look after the children due to his disabilty. This family is now doing it extremely tough. Their finances and situation have well and truly been hit for six. Because Joe doesn’t have income protection insurance he couldn’t get any money for his accident.

Just to live, Joe and his wife have to start using assets and savings which they were trying to grow. Now Joe’s monetary assets are starting to get eaten into. In some respects, Joe is lucky he has a partner who can go back to work. However, what about if he was single? Then his situation would be worse again.

Think of it this way. Joe is 35 and if he retires at 65, he will have a further 30 years of income. This equates to around $1,560,000 million dollars over the coming years. You are probably in a similar position as Joe. In fact, if you are younger, you would have more money coming to you over this time. But most people never think of it like this!

We have all seen the stories on the news of people who have gone through huge tragedies. Most of these stories somewhere have the line, “We never thought it would happen to us,” said by a relative of the victim. Nobody ever does think it will happen to them; but it could.

However, not only accidents can happen to stop your wage in its tracks. What about illnesses or cancer. These terrible conditions can make a normal functioning human being, into a bedridden person extremely quickly. In most cases, you don’t find out about the problem until it is too late.

Did you know, under 20% of Australians have income protection insurance. This compares with over 70% of Australians who have house insurance. Or over 80% who have car insurance.

It seems, as a nation we just do not place a high priority on protecting our wages. Maybe because we don’t understand how truly valuable our wages are. Even a small hiccup in not getting your wages can cause you major heartache and money.

Do not delay. Don’t think you will do it next month or come tax time. Start doing research right now on income protection insurance. You need to protect the biggest asset you have ... your ability to earn a wage!