Life Insurance Needs Calculator

The Avant Life Insurance Needs Calculator (“calculator”) can provide an estimate of your current life insurance, critical illness, total and permanent disablement (TPD) and income protection needs. It is intended to guide you in thinking about the level of cover you may be considering. The calculator takes information you provide and combines this with default assumptions that we believe are reasonable, to calculate sums insured.

The financial calculator is not intended to be relied on for the purposes of deciding in relation to a financial product. You should consider obtaining advice from a licensed financial services adviser before making any financial decisions.  The amounts calculated may not be suitable for your specific personal, medical and financial circumstances, and may not be achievable due to product or underwriting restrictions applied by insurers. The estimates generated by the calculator may differ substantially to the recommendations that a financial adviser may make due to different default assumptions, client preferences, affordability, and considerations of existing cover you may have elsewhere.

You can adjust the information you provide, including the default assumptions embedded in the calculator. See below for more information on these assumptions. While the default assumptions underlying this calculator are considered reasonable at 1 January 2024, these assumptions may be reviewed in the future and are subject to change.

The sums insured calculated may be subject to product limitations. For example, many insurers will not insure more than $ 3 million TPD, which may require the user to consider the adequacy of the benefit period for income protection they select. The calculator does not consider all your financial circumstances including any existing life insurance cover you might have, whether you have private health cover, the tax consequences of the cover, whether it should be held outside or inside superannuation, or it’s affordability. Please note, large or multiple amounts of insurance cover inside superannuation may erode your future retirement income.

The calculator does not include any information about fees and costs associated with insurance. You should contact Avant Life Insurance directly for any eligibility and underwriting requirements, and actual insurance costs on 1800 128 268.

The amount of suggested income protection cover will typically be less than your current income and may not be enough to cover all the responsibilities you select. Some income protection products may include an allowance for superannuation that we have not included.

Depending on your circumstance, some or all of the insurance proceeds may be subject to tax including Medicare Levy. Please seek separate tax advice in relation to insurance benefits. No allowance has been made for any social security benefits to which you may be or become entitled, or how an future insurance benefit may impact them.

We have made certain default assumptions based on our own opinions and external sources which may not reflect your preferences or what you may actually experience. We believe the default assumptions are reasonable based on external sources such as government websites: MoneySmart (moneysmart.gov.au) and Medical Costs Finder (medicalcostsfinder.health.gov.au), the Avant Guide to Life Insurance and policy standards used by Avant Financial Advice, as follows:

The default assumptions we have made can be modified by the user. The following describes the rationale for why we have selected the default assumptions:

• Income protection amounts are 70% of salaried income (up to a maximum of $30,000 per month due to common product limitations). 70% is the maximum allowed by most insurers.
• Benefit periods of 2 years, 5 years or to age 65 are based on common insurer options.
• Funeral costs ($15,000) included in the Death amount. This is considered reasonable as the average funeral costs in Australia are estimated to be between $4,000 and $15,000. (Source = https:// www.moneysmart.gov.au/life-events-and-you/over-55s/paying-for-your-funeral)
• Out-of-pocket medical ($25,000) included in the TPD and Trauma amount.  We have based this on the Avant Guide to Life Insurance and medicalcostsfinder.health.gov.au.
• Disability related home care, rehabilitation and home modifications ($175,000) included in the TPD amount. We have based this on the Avant Guide to Life Insurance and medicalcostsfinder.health.gov.au.
• Trauma amounts include two-years of mortgage repayments or rental obligations where these are supplied by the user. We have based this on the Avant Guide to Life Insurance.
• Death amounts, which are calculated to include all debt and funeral costs, and offsetting all superannuation, liquid and illiquid investments include a capital amount for lost future income that is a growing annuity calculation using our default wages inflation and  investment earnings growth.  For Death, this amount includes as default calculation to replace 50% of the future income of the deceased (to what would have been their age of 65), as typically there are less expenses when debts are paid off with a lump sum.
• TPD amounts are calculated to include all debts and for out-of-pocket medical, disability related home care, rehabilitation, and home modifications, and offsets the proceeds of superannuation only, leaving other liquid and illiquid investments to be retained.  It also includes a default capital amount for lost future income (to age 65 of the injured) that is adjusted based on the income protection benefit period selected by the user in the calculator, as follows:
  • if the user selects an income protection benefit period of 2 years, 5 years or none, the annuity is calculated on the present value of 100% of their salaried income (from their current age to age 65) for any period in which they do not have income protection cover.
  • if the user selects an income protection benefit to age 65, the annuity is calculated on the present value of 30% of their income from their current age to age 65.
• The growing annuity calculation uses a default 4% wages inflation based on growth in average weekly earnings of 4.0% in Sept 2023 quarter.
• The growing annuity calculation uses a default 8% investment earnings growth.     This is based on  expected returns on a Balanced portfolio supported by Vanguard published 8.7% historical average 1926-2021. This is considered reasonable as the balanced option is usually the default option for investment portfolios. The actual investment return applicable may differ significantly from this assumption and, if this is more or less than the assumed value, the outcome at the end of the selected period could be affected.
• Where the user indicates they have no dependents and partners, the Death amount is based on the value of the estate the user inputs, taking into account all debts and assets, rather than replacing future lost salaried income.  The default replacement income in this situation is therefore set at 0% but can be modified by the user up to 70% (the product issuer limit).

This calculator is provided by Doctors Financial Services Pty Limited, ABN 56 610 510 328 AFSL 487758 trading as ‘Avant Life Insurance’ (DFS) through a third party application licence (Calconic). DFS and its related bodies corporate specifically disclaim any liability and responsibility to any person who relies, or partially relies, upon anything done or omitted to be done by the calculator. While the assumptions and data used by the calculator are updated regularly, DFS provides no guarantee that the they are current at all times.

The information provided through the calculator is general advice only. It has been prepared without taking into account your objectives, financial situation and needs. You should consider these, having regard to the appropriateness of this advice as before deciding to purchase or continue to hold a financial product. For a copy of our financial services guide, which has information about our services, relationships and how we are paid, contact us on 1800 128 268.

You should reassess your insurance needs regularly as your circumstances may change.

Information supplied by the user into the calculator, as well as their email address should they choose the option to email the results to themselves, is stored, under licence, by a third party supplier, MB Lumius (Calconic).  Calconic treat information provided through the calculator portal in accordance with their Privacy Policy (insert hyperlink to Calconic’s privacy policy Get know more about our privacy policy | CALCONIC_). Avant/DFS does not store any of the information supplied by the user into the calculator. We have taken care to construct the calculator so that it does not collect personal information from you such as your name, date-of-birth, address or tax file number to reduce the risks of the financial data supplied by the user being linked to your identity.  By using the calculator, you consent to the use, transfer and disclosure of your personal information to Calconic in accordance with their Privacy Policy including how they manage and protect the personal information they hold about individuals.