Philip Holland Financial Independence financialindependence

Fingers crossed, everything will be fine and nothing bad will ever happen to you or your family. This is one strategy some people use when it comes to their risk management plans. The other is to use a trusted adviser.

So what can you do to ensure your risk management plan will protect you and your assets, rather than crossing your fingers in hope?

• Trusted Adviser – make sure you use a qualified adviser. A good adviser should offer you:
  • Needs analysis of your situation;
  • Written report of your risk management needs;
  • Ongoing regular reviews (see point two);
  • Ability to help you with claims in the future.
• Review, review, review – I cannot stress the importance of continually reviewing your insurance requirements. Life changes and so does your risk management needs. Don't wait for your adviser to contact you for a review...call them if something changes.
• Ask questions – make sure that you have an understanding of what you are covered for and what you are not covered for. Recent free risk management audits of new clients have uncovered claims that these people didn't even know they were covered for.

We recently had a client who had two commercial buildings. He had not reviewed his risk management plan for a while and had assumed everything was fine. After a professional and in-depth review of his risk management needs, we found that one building was under insured by over 30 per cent and the other was in breach of the insurance he had. Basically, he had his fingers crossed without even knowing. This is a similar story for people with life insurances as well.

So don't have your fingers crossed that nothing is going to happen to you or your family...the reality is something could happen at any time, any place and the peace of mind of having a well-designed risk management plan is worth a good night sleep.

Philip Holland is the managing director for the Financial Independence group, Tauranga's leading specialist insurance and mortgage advisers. For further information please contact an adviser at Financial Independence phone 07 578 4414 or email [email protected]. A Disclosure Statement is available free of charge on request.