The key to protecting your family - Women's Agenda

The key to protecting your family

The Know Risk program was developed after the devastation of the Black Saturday fires and the 2011 Brisbane floods. It was designed to address the very real concern of under-insurance and educate families (and particularly women) on how to keep their homes and possessions covered.

Balancing the rigours of work and raising children is challenging enough, but throw in the added pressure of maintaining the household’s finances and some things may slip through the cracks.

For many, it’s the safety of their household possessions. According to a recent study, 81% of households are exposed to huge financial loss because their insurance does not cover them after a crisis to the same standard of living they’re used to and expect. That’s a sizeable crack.

With 84% of women having direct influence on household spending habits — from the weekly groceries to extras for the kids or financial investments — the pressure comes not from how money is spent, but from how women manage the risk of losing what their families own.

The average Australian household has approximately $84,000 worth of contents, which is a considerable amount of property needing protection. However, according to Prue Willsford, CEO of ANZIIF and the Know Risk Network, it isn’t the big-ticket items that fill up our lives and need replacing the most.

“While we have our televisions and fridges, it’s the smaller things that are often overlooked and cost more to replace,” says Willsford.

Nearly $2 billion was spent on clothing, footwear and accessories in June – that’s a lot of money hanging in the average family’s wardrobe, while Australian families spend more on toys per year (approx. $1300 per family) than any other country.

“Most of us have some form of home and contents cover, but realistically, most of us probably don’t have enough. When do we really stop and think about how difficult it would be to replace it all? Not until we have to replace it, which is usually too late,” says Willsford.

“That’s why Know Risk was created.”

Following the devastation of the Black Saturday fires and the 2011 Brisbane floods, Willsford says the Know Risk program was designed to address the very real concern of underinsurance.

“Families were left with nothing and had no way to start over. While many people had insurance, in many cases it wasn’t enough to cover the basics, let alone rebuild a home or restore their way of life,” she says.

Through education and practical risk management tips, the aim of the program is to help build stronger, more resilient households.

Taking an active view of managing the risk in her own life, Willsford believes that the first step in ensuring a family’s way of life is taking stock of everything they own.

“As a rule, anything you would take with you if you moved house needs to be included. This includes items like rugs, curtains or air conditioning units,” she says.

“Walk around your home and catalogue everything you can. In the case of your wardrobe, count how many items of each type are there (blouses, jumpers, shoes, t-shirts, jeans, suits, and so on), multiply that by the average amount spent on that item type, and then add it all together.”

An advocate of using technology to help, Willsford says that taking photos of each item you want to insure is a great way of keeping track of the household.

“I take photos for anything expensive or hard to replace, while for things like my books, I just take a snap of the whole shelf. For electrical goods, I take a photo of the model and serial numbers,” she says.

“I love my phone, and I use the Know Risk Insurance Tracker app as it stores photos and any other information I want to keep on my items and I can access it from wherever I am.”

Once done Willsford says you’ll probably find that you’ve previously undervalued your home’s contents, and will need to update your insurance.

“We constantly bring things into the home and forget about how much it costs. I do an inventory check every year. The last thing you want is to be caught out if something goes wrong.”

Know Risk is a free, independent, practical risk and insurance information resource for the community. For more information, visit knowrisk.com.au or download the free Know Risk Insurance Tracker app.

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