Insurance Cover

A story recently published on news.com.au about a policy from Million Dollar Woman offering stay at home parents compensation if they are unable to work, totally bemused me. Well not so much the story, which was great. It was the accompanying poll that grabbed my attention. The poll simply asked “Should stay-at-home mums be compensated if they get sick?”

Now given that in order to receive the compensation you have to have taken out an insurance policy to the tune of $40 or $60 a month for the Day-to-Day Living Expenses Cover to pay you either $1,000 or $1,500 fortnightly, it seems a no-brainer to me. Absolutely I say, compensate.

This is a simple insurance policy protecting in most cases the primary care giver in the family. It is not subsidised by the tax payer. It costs us nothing. So given that it is a self-funded voluntary insurance, why would anyone respond to that poll question with a No?

Continue reading "Why shouldn’t we be able to insure domestic labour?" »

The massive losses from the floods that are impacting Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria has raised issues about the adequacy of insurance coverage, particularly flood coverage and the way such disasters should be funded.

There are many examples of disaster insurance arrangements that different countries have in place covering flood, earthquakes and other disasters. 

In Australia a proposal for such a national disaster insurance scheme was developed in the 1970s following the Brisbane Floods and Cyclone Tracy - but it was never implemented.

Continue reading "Do politicians have the guts for disaster insurance?" »