The most powerful moment of the Mind The Gap campaign launch yesterday was almost missed, but Diana Clement, our host for the event picked up on it.
Lynda Smardon from the Ministry of Social Development joined us to outline the state help available in the event of disability arising from illness. She pointed out that help is means tested. The level of a partner’s income at which no main benefit is payable is $30,212. Other help, such as accommodation supplements can be available but these depend on circumstances and vary regionally.
Our research shows that these are rarely paid. The single biggest issue is that the market for insurance is dominated by two-income households. As soon as your partner earns more that $30,212 you receive no main benefit. We developed an info-graphic to illustrate a case study and the levels of state help available and wherever we went the content was challenged, because most of the numbers were “$0” – many advisers could not believe how little help would be available.