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Amid a growing insurance storm and rising premiums, who will take the risk? Watch Insight episode Uninsurable Tuesday 6 May at 8.30pm AEST or live on.
I’d felt really and couldn’t wait to be independent. But three weeks later, I was dependent on everybody.
After we separated I was in the process of buying a house, as we’d sold our marital home. Despite the good money I was earning, my bank of 15 years was reluctant to give me a because I was in a new contract job and wasn’t a full-time employee.
For the first time in my life, I felt very vulnerable. I was on my own again and everything seemed out of my control.
One bank finally agreed to give me a loan. Still, all that was going through my mind was what would become of me or my if I ever lost my job.
I still remember the sleepless night when I lay in bed thinking: “What can I do for myself so I can feel like I’m in control?”
This was the night I decided to get income insurance.
I’d never had it before, but I thought that, if the bank was worried about my ability to make mortgage repayments, maybe that was something I should set myself up to be able to do. So that’s what I did.
Selecting an income protection insurance policy is a bit like choosing an insurance policy with excess. I thought I could probably go a month without pay if it ever came to it … but after that, I would need money coming in.
It felt as though someone was watching over me, perhaps myself or a higher power, because just three weeks after my separation and three months following the decision to get income protection, I found myself in a situation where I urgently needed it.
Kerry’s car after the accident. Source: Supplied
‘They thought I was dead’
I was packing the boot of my car for a weekend away with my sisters — then I don’t remember anything.
A four-wheel-drive came up behind us, crushed me between our two cars and I was pinned to the front of his car for 20 metres until he realised, reversed and dropped me to the asphalt.
They thought I was dead, and the police crash investigation unit that responds to road incidents involving fatalities was notified.
I kept going in and out of consciousness. I remember waking up in the hospital and realising I was in a compromised position.
Three pelvic fractures, two spinal fractures, one compound fracture of left tibia and damage to every ligament in both knees — and those were just my major injuries.
I think if he had a bull bar on his car, I wouldn’t be here.
I spent three months in hospital and six weeks of full-time care in my own home, plus another four months of physiotherapy and hydrotherapy. The first two months of this were spent lying on my back, immobile.
It was another four surgeries and then another 18 months before I could walk without any aids.
There were still pieces of the windshield in Kerry’s face when she was brought into hospital. Source: Supplied
Insurance as ‘a work in progress’
I didn’t get paid for the first month, as I opted out of the first month when I signed up to income insurance. But luckily, I was paid monthly for five months out of the six months I couldn’t work at all.
Although the income protection payments began almost immediately after the accident, it was a long road to receiving my compulsory third party compensation payout.
It was really confronting going to court three times with the driver who hit me. I worried all the time about if there was somebody looking over my back fence — trying to see if I was doing the wrong thing.
I kept every receipt, noted everything I did to keep a record and told everybody about what I was doing during my recovery. Fortunately, after two-and-a-half years, we reached an out of court settlement and I received my payout to help cover medical treatments.
I’ve been lucky that I’ve always been able to afford insurance, but I always shop around. I’m not loyal to any company.
I like the idea that you can choose your amount of cover or what you need at the time. I think it’s always a work in progress. You change it along the way.
The most important thing is that you’re covered.
Kerry says that practising yoga is one way she now takes care of her body. Source: Getty
‘Changed the way I think and live’
The months after the separation and my accident were some of the toughest of my life.
But when I think about it, everything went my way and I feel incredibly grateful.
Had the accident been a week earlier, the house could have fallen through. I was lucky that all the paperwork had been signed.
My friends helped me move into my new home after hospital and had a roster where there was someone checking in on me every single day.
I hate saying the accident was the best thing that ever happened to me — because it wasn’t — but it really has changed the way I think and live.
There was a time where I couldn’t walk properly; I was in a wheelchair and couldn’t do anything for myself. It was two and a half years before I was walking without a walking stick.
Now, I walk to so many places just because I can.
I learned to listen to my body and look after it. I even fulfilled a long-term goal of becoming a yoga teacher.
I don’t remember how much my income protection insurance was but know it was worth every last cent.
It doesn’t matter how much it was.
You’re never going to think about how much it was once you need it.
And for more stories on sex, relationships, health, wealth, grief and more, head to hosted by Kumi Taguchi. Follow us on the , , , or wherever you get your podcasts.
