Discounted Medical Offer from Vesta

2 December 2015
Discounted Medical
Offer from Vesta
How Does It Work
Vesta Cover Limited has broken new ground in the New Zealand
insurance market by offering SuperGold Card and Grey Power
members top quality Partners Life Medical Insurance cover at a
permanent discount of 35%. Normally, this is the proportion of
premiums you pay that go to the broker or adviser selling the cover at the beginning.
Offering the cover at a 35% discount means that Vesta has permanently removed all income for Vesta from the sale of your policy.
In order that the we can continue to operate we need to either
charge a one-off flat fee, or include a small Life/Funeral policy with
the plan. Although much cheaper than you might expect, the Life/
Funeral Cover is not discounted to the same degree as the medical
cover.
Once your policy is in place it will stay in place until you decide you
no longer need it. While Vesta will be there to help you with any
issues you have in the future, the insurer, Partners Life, will be
your first point of contact for all and any claims in the future.
Because your health is thoroughly checked at the application stage
it’s probable that any major health issues will be excluded from
your cover. Vesta encourages anyone planning to cancel an
Cont. page 2...
What’s Inside
How Premiums Compare ............ ….2
Major Providers of Medical Cover...3
Why Buy Private Medical Cover…….4
A Real Life Example.. ................... ….4
Vesta Life/Funeral Cover—Why
Is It Cheaper ................................ ...5
An option We’re Investigating..... ...6
Special points of interest
 Vesta’s Offer is now available
as one of SuperGold Cards
Special Offers—We’re very
excited and privileged to be
given this opportunity.
 Grey Power now supports
Vesta’s offer after 6 weeks of
due diligence by them. We
believe this proves the strength
of our offer.
How Does It Work … continued from page 1
existing policy that covers a pre-existing health condition to
think very carefully. It could be false economy to cancel your old
policy for a premium saving only to find that your health condition flares up and isn’t covered by your new policy.
However, there are many conditions that, once treated, aren’t
likely to be a problem in the future. In these cases it could be a
good decision to cut your premiums so that you can get on with
your life without spending your retirement income on medical
insurance premiums.
Your doctor might be a good person to talk to about it.
“...it could be a good decision to cut your premiums so that you can get on with your life
without spending your retirement income on medical insurance premiums.”
Consumer Picks
Partners Life
Medical Cover
In September 2015
Consumer Institute issued the results of its
survey of the 10 major
medical insurance poli-
How Premiums Compare
Although the discount offered by Vesta is a whopping 35%, the
actual saving made by some cardholders with their cover elsewhere could be more than 50%! Here’s a comparison of our
Medical package with the premiums charged by Southern Cross
for a male non-smoker:
Age
(Male Non-Smoker)
Southern Cross
Partners Life
VIP Plan
Medical Plan
Incl. Specialist & Test Incl. Specialist & Test
cies available in New
50
$145.52/Mth
$87.62/Mth
Zealand and decided
55
$183.96/Mth
$115.34/Mth
that the Partners Life
60
$249.37/Mth
$143.96/Mth
cover offered in this
65
$443.47/Mth
$169.41/Mth
package was their
70
$443.47/Mth
$229.67/Mth
number 1 pick.
Southern Cross includes Body care module
All amounts assume a $250 per claim year excess on. Southern
Cross premiums stop being adjusted for age after 65. Partners
Life premiums stop adjusting for age after 85.
Should I Choose
Specialist & Test
Cover?
No… the medical policy doesn't cover dental
Major Providers of Medical Cover
The following graph shows the major providers of medical
insurance in New Zealand, how much they cost for a 65 year old
male non-smoker, and how an Independent Quality Research
company assesses each of them out of 5 stars.
The Partners Life premium showing below is their standard retail
cost so it doesn’t include the 35% discount. All information is as
at 21 November 2015.
The base Partners Life
Medical policy (without
Specialist & Test) does
cover specialist and
diagnostic test in the 6
months leading up to,
and 6 months after, a
private hospital surgery
or non-surgical admission. This might mean
that taking the base
cover is enough for
your needs.
If you don’t include the
Specialist & Test option
you will not be covered
for those expensive
visits to a private
specialist, or the
diagnostic tests that
don’t result in admission or surgery.
Grey Power Gets
Behind Vesta’s Offer
Vesta is honoured to
have the support of
Grey Power in providing you with this offer.
We’ve spent the last 2
months working with
Grey Power while they
undertook some detailed ’due diligence’
into every aspect of
Vesta’s package.
With the support of
such a respected advo-
Why Buy Private Medical Insurance
If a condition is a nonemergency condition, in the
public system you will usually
need to go through an assessment process and qualify for
‘elective’ treatment. Common
elective treatments include:
hip or knee replacement,
heart surgery, hysterectomy,
cataract removal, cancerous
tumour removal, and diagnostic services such as endoscopy,
laparoscopy, MRI scans, tonsillectomy, and grommets.
Private medical insurance
helps with the cost of many
non-urgent procedures and
provides faster access to private hospitals for the treatment. Not having to wait for
treatment means getting back
to work faster and enjoying a
better quality of life. In some
extreme cases the drastic
shortening of wait times can
save lives.
cate for older New Zealanders we’re confident that the offer
stacks up.
Vesta has also been
highly impressed with
Grey Power as an
organization and would
strongly encourage you
to consider becoming
one of their members.
A Real Life Example
One of Vesta’s staff noticed, quite alarmingly, that he was bleeding from the bowel in January 2015. He went to his doctor who,
after an initial examination, decided that a colonoscopy was in
order to diagnose exactly what was going on. The possible causes ranged from relatively minor to quite deadly.
The doctor began to explain how the public hospital waiting list
worked for that kind of elective procedure and prepared our
staff member for a wait of more than a few months.
When our staff member mentioned that he had private health
insurance the doctor’s response was “Oh, alright, contact this
specialist. He should be able to book you in next week”.
The booking was made and the $2,500 cost of the procedure
funded by Partners Life—after the $250 excess was paid.
Happily, it was nothing major and he got on with life.
Vesta’s Life /Funeral Cover—Why Is It Cheaper
The Vesta Life/Funeral Cover provided by Partners Life costs dramatically less than the other funeral covers available across the
market. That’s because there are some key differences between
them.
The funeral cover normally offered online, or in television marketing, has automatic acceptance of the person being covered so
they don’t have to provide any evidence of their state of health.
The insurance companies can do this because they only give the
insured accidental death cover for the first 2 years. Anyone applying for the cover because they have a serious/terminal illness
will, at best, receive a refund of their premiums if they pass
“Better that the money stays in your bank account and is available for your estate
if you don’t make it to age 80.”
away within the first 2 years. This obviously still exposes the insurer to an increased risk of claims by people who were in poor
health when they applied - so they charge you (and everyone
else) a much higher premium than they would if you had provided evidence of your health when you applied for the cover.
The Life/Funeral cover offered in our package provides full cover
from any cause (except suicide within the first 13 months) from
the day the cover begins.
A second key difference is that the funeral cover premium
charged by other providers usually stays the same throughout
life and sometimes even cease being payable from age 80. This is
an important difference between the covers.
Our Life/Funeral cover has very low starting premiums that gradually increase over the years and are payable throughout life.
We take the position that you’re better to pay a much lower premium throughout the years and put the savings aside to cover
your funeral if you do get to a very advanced age. A 50 year old
will have saved between $17,000 and $23,000 (plus interest) in
premiums with us between the age of 50 and 80. Better that the
Cont. next page...
Inflation Adjustment with Life/
Funeral Cover
Our Life/Funeral cover
comes with an automatic option to inflation adjust your cover
each year. If you don’t
want to have this op-
Vesta’s Life /Funeral Cover—Why Is It Cheaper
...cont. from previous page
money stays in your bank account and is available for your estate if you don’t make it to age 80.
Here’s a comparison of the monthly premiums charged for
$20,000 of funeral cover and the amount a male non-smoker
would save to age 80:
Age
Pinnacle
Life
AA Life
Partners Life
Savings to
age 80 #
50
$63.00
$80.00
$15.73
$17,017—
$23,137
55
$76.50
$95.50
$25.97
$15,159—
$20,859
60
$97.50
$120.12
$24.65
$5,625—
$11,354
65
$121.50
$144.67
$47.31
$6,572—
$10,742
70
$165.00
$186.98
$84.34
$6,350—
$8,988
tion let us know and we
will suspend it until you
decide you’d like to
add it back.
Vesta Cover Limited
Freephone
0800 2 83782
(0800 2 VESTA)
E-mail
[email protected]
For and Instant Quote
www.vestacover.co.nz
This document was prepared by Bryan
Tucker, Authorised Financial Adviser
(FSP 99884)
A disclosure statement is available for
Bryan on the website and is free of
charge.
# Savings exclude interest or investment income
So if a life insured doesn’t make it to age 80 all of the extra premiums paid are kept by the insurer. With Vesta’s Life/Funeral
cover your estate gets to keep the savings.
An Option We’re Investigating
In the future Vesta will be looking to offer an option that allows
our policyholders to pay the higher premium but keep the extra
amount in a trust account for the policyholders benefit. If they
suffer a financial catastrophe along the way the trust account
will be able to pick up the premiums until they get back on their
feet. At an age chosen by the policyholder they can simply
choose to stop paying premiums for their funeral cover and
have the trust carry on. When they do eventually pass away the
proceeds of the policy AND the residual monies left in the trust
account are paid to the insured persons estate.