Income protection offers you the financial assistance that you need in case you become incapable to work for a certain period of time due to sickness or accidental injuries. However, not all individuals are qualified to get coverage for this particular type of insurance. Insurance companies in Australia carefully consider your occupation and determine whether you meet the minimum working requirements or not.
The minimum working hours for income protection varies from one company to another, but usually they range from 20-25 hours of work per week. To determine the number of hours you need to meet, the insurance provider will take into account your working weeks per year. Of course if you only work for one week per month or 8 hours per week, chances are you won’t get approved for an income protection policy.
So, why the need to put this minimum working hours requirement?
· Without this requirement, anyone would have easy access on getting coverage—yes, even those who just work a few hours a week.
In In fact a good quality income protection will inlcude a 10 hour claims defintion. So if you work 10 hours or less you are elgible to recieve your full monthly benefit.
· To spare other policyholders from an increase in premiums just to cover the administrative expenses of offering small policies.
Based on various company claim experiences, putting a cap somewhere is highly significant so as individuals won’t take advantage of the benefits and delay going back to work. And if you ever wondered why only 75% of your income is protected by this insurance, it’s because it serves as people’s incentive to return to work since this amount is lesser than what you really earn. So imagine if you work just 20 hours a week, do you think you’ll see the need to return to work as soon as possible with the dollar value reduction in your income?