Ok the OCR has moved for the first time in a long time and interest rates are all rising. Is this a problem? It depends on your perspective.

If you are a homeowner then yes it will have a direct impact, your mortgage payments will rise. Again, is this a problem?

If you bought your home some time ago when rates were higher and you have not borrowed more, it is probably not a problem and you have been enjoying cheaper money than you anticipated. Additionally you have possibly paid back more principal than you normally would have and you are now in a better position.

For the majority this will not be the case, certainly in Auckland if you have bought your first home or upgraded in the last 3-4 years, it will have been because the lower interest rates have assisted you to do this. The low interest rates probably had some impact on the increased house prices too.

The newspaper is full of timely reminders and this article is one of them. We are getting to 12 months in on the new home insurance approach of insuring for the rebuild value. It would appear that the vast majority are in for a shock when they have a loss to the house and they hear what it's going to cost to rebuild.

From the major insurers in the country the news isn't pretty. 60-75% of people took the rebuild value number on their insurance at the last renewal and just ran with it. Of the other 25-40% of people who did look at it and change it, 90% increased their cover.

The claims comment in the article would also suggest those who increased their coverage are the ones who probably have it right.

This article was current when posted on the 13th of March 2014. Since then the insurer discussed in the following news article has made positive changes to address the issue raised. This blog post was updated 10 July 2014, updates to the original article posting are noted in ()

Topical article this week, 13th March 2014, on breast reconstruction after breast cancer surgery, one insurer got a pasting, but not all insurers are alike. Also not all medical insurance policies with the same provider are alike, as also demonstrated in the article.

The article, which you can read here, only mentioned 4 of the 10 providers of medical insurance benefits in the New Zealand market, which does the market a dis-service as it does provide valuable benefits to policy holders in need.

What do you need to know

Ok so we have all had ‘The would you like fries with that approach’. You are standing at the teller at the bank doing your banking and they start asking you a bunch of questions. You are here now; we can do other things for you, nice and easy. Do you have life insurance; can we help you with your mortgage? Can we invest your money or look after your Kiwisaver? Or some other variation on this.

My question is why would you take advice for your insurance or investments standing at a teller at the bank? Would you take advice for chest pains from your local cafe owner? My point is they are chalk and cheese, banking and insurance.

 From time to time, I hear key staff from insurance companies speak at training and development sessions I attend. A recent one I heard from a key person in charge of operations. This person oversees both the underwriting (your application) and claims (where you get paid)

What was interesting to hear was the statement ‘Where there is adviser guidance with the application; the client generally has a better outcome at claim.’

Two medical insurers have changed or added to their products this month. NIB the insurer who took over Tower Medical last year and the largest medical insurer in the New Zealand market, Southern Cross.

So what have they done?

If you are familiar with Tower Medical they had Premier Health and Easy Health in their product range. NIB have added Basic, Mid, Ultimate and Ultimate Max policy options to their mix. Making it both more flexible in building the medical insurance products for you but also making it more complex to understand the nuances of the different policies, which is where we as advisers come in.

A timely reminder in the Herald today, especially for those students about to start the year and are flat hunting.

If you're renting you need to have some level of contents cover. Ideally enough to cover the replacement of your possessions but more importantly cover for damage you may be liable for.

Babies have been the key subject at home in the last few weeks with a new addition. A previous comment about medical insurance has got me thinking.

Those things around Babies and New Family members you need to be aware of that can trigger a need to have a chat with us.

This is an area of health care often mis-understood until you are in the thick of your treatment and you find out things may not be as you expected.

Pharmac is the governments answer to managing health care costs and getting the best deal for New Zealanders health care dollar. The challenge is that health care dollar, which is funded from your taxes, only goes so far.

Willowgrove Consulting was established in January 2012 by Jon-Paul (J-P) & Satya Hale as their own business in Financial Services.

J-P and Satya enjoy travelling, the Willowgrove name comes from visiting Sausalito in San Francisco. Sausalito is Italian for small Willow Grove. Willowgrove Consulting was established to operate as a trading company initially for J-P's insurance and financial services base. With the purpose to develop sales and sales management tools as well as operate an insurance advisory service through another company J-P was associated with.

Something which is often kicked around by financial advisers is private education, sort of meaning: if something happened to you, your kids would go/move to private education from public education.

Now this may be a wish you have but the practical reality is your kids have had a significant change with the loss or disability of a parent. Why would you inflict more change on them by pulling them away from their friends and stable routine to send them to private schooling? Sounds like a great way of scarring them for life at a vulnerable time.

One simple reason; your risk situation changes. Surprisingly so. I have found many situations where what was covered and covered reasonably well, is not only months later.

For example, a new client I was talking to had a cover that was only a few months old. The situation had changed quite quickly following a relationship break up, quite a bit of debt had been taken on as a result. The life cover taken was no longer sufficient to cover this and the repayment insurance they had, now has a significant shortfall.

Another client after reviewing their situation, a month later comes back. Oh yes, by the way, we have bought an investment property and effectively doubled our mortgage. Quite a change in risk there too.

Life’s full of surprises though life cover insurance is usually a subject you do not get surprises in. Sovereign’s 2013 published causes for life claims, or rather reasons people died, makes for surprising reading.

In the graph from Sovereigns claims for the year ending 30 June 2013, The 70 plus age group isn’t surprising, cancer, heart or lungs are usual reasons people pass away. The first usually causing one of the second or third.

Stepping back from the older lives, things get a little different.