The purpose of insurance is to reduce financial uncertainty and make accidental loss “manageable”.
But so many people are now finding ever-increasing premiums are contributing to their financial uncertainty - that it’s the insurance itself that is unmanageable.
Recently I went to the bank with a pensioner to seeif I could help them reduce the cost of their crippling insurance premiums.
She owns her own home so we weren’t looking to cut insurance costs there, but thought perhaps we could do something with the contents.
She didn’t know how much her contents insurance was, but when we were told it was a huge amount we thought straight away that the easy fix we wanted would come from there.
We asked for it to be reduced by $70,000, leaving enough to replace the basic things you would need for a home.
The person doing the calculations at the bank had initially thought we had come to stop insurance payments so was happy to help us.
She asked a lot of questions, got someone at “head office” on the phone and 10 or so minutes later hung up the phone and said “that’s all done for you and your new payment will be...”.
Reducing $70,000 worth of insurance would save her $1.50 a week.
I was actually speechless for about 20 seconds before saying “are you joking”?
We ended up asking for it to be left as is.
Linda Hall is assistant editor at Hawke's Bay Today. Photo / Warren Buckland.
She never offered us any advice on ways to cut down premium costs. I have since been told that going for a higher excess helps lower premiums. We would have taken that option had it been offered.
Personally, I don’t think it’s a good decision to drop your insurance, however, for more and more people who have already tightened their belts so much that their bellies are hurting, they have no option but to pay for food, rent and power over premiums.
Unfortunately, it’s the people on fixed incomes with no prospect of finding a part-time job to help pay the bills who are suffering the most.
To top it all off the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council is going to force the majority of its ratepayers to stretch their budgets even more.
Despite almost 90 per cent opposition from submitters to its proposal to switch the calculation of rates from land value to capital value it’s going ahead and doing it anyway.
Some councillors said they had to think about the people who did not submit on the proposal. What does that even mean? Are they saying that the people who didn’t submit wanted the proposal to go ahead? Rubbish.
It’s pretty sad that the people who do take the time to submit are basically overruled (according to the councillors) by those that don’t.
I didn’t submit. I took one look at the process and started banging my head against a wall.
Someone I know did. She said the entire process was “horrendous”.
She had to print the proposal out because “I had to answer questions about other proposals which I knew nothing about. Then I had to do some reading to work out my answers. They made the process so hard it’s a wonder they got any responses. It should be simple.”
I couldn’t agree more.
Linda Hall is a Hastings-based assistant editor for Hawke’s Bay Today, and has 30 years of experience in newsrooms. She writes regularly on arts and entertainment, lifestyle and hospitality, and pens a column.
