Living Assurance

If a child of the life assured suffers an applicable covered condition, the Children's Trauma Benefit will pay a benefit of 50% of the sum assured (up to $20,000). Importantly, the payment of the Children's Trauma Benefit will not reduce the amount of any Living Assurance remaining for the life assured.

A 3 month stand down period and a 14 day survival period applies. Exclusions apply for any pre-existing or congenital conditions.

Please note that Sovereign will pay one claim per child under either the Newborn Children's Benefit or the Children's Trauma Benefit across all Sovereign policies. This benefit is included for the life of the policy. However claims are expected to be low for a life assured aged between 2 to 15 years.

Why is this important?

The built-in Children's Trauma Benefit provides some trauma cover for a life assured's children aged 2 to 21 years within their standard premium cost. Should the worst happen, your clients might choose to use the lump sum to contribute towards treatment costs or to take time off work to care for their child.

If the life assured's child is born with one of five specified congenital conditions and survives for thirty days after birth, the Newborn Children's Benefit will pay a benefit of 50% of the sum assured (up to $20,000). The payment of the Newborn Children's Benefit will not reduce the amount of any Living Assurance remaining for the life assured.

Please note that Sovereign will pay only one claim per child under either the Newborn Children's Benefit or the Children's Trauma Benefit across all Sovereign policies.

A 12 month stand down period and 30 day survival period applies.

This benefit is included for the life of the policy. However claims are expected to be low for a life assured aged between 2 to 15 years.

Why is this important?

Your clients might choose to use the Newborn Children's Benefit to take time off work to care for their child.

This optional benefit provides additional children's trauma cover of up to a further 50% of the sum assured (up to $50,000) per child of the life assured, and covers multiple children.

The children's benefit is paid if a named child of the life assured suffers an applicable covered condition under Living Assurance except for the Optional Total Permanent Disablement condition (if applicable). This optional benefit is paid once per child across all Sovereign policies and is paid in addition to the built-in Children's Trauma Benefit.  If both parents have taken the optional benefit under separate policies then two payments may be made. This optional benefit can be added to either Comprehensive Living Assurance or Progressive Care, but not both for the same life assured.

The Optional Children's and Maternity Benefit also provides cover for three defined serious pregnancy complications and a bereavement support benefit if a child of the life assured should pass away before age 3. The bereavement support benefit is paid once across all Sovereign policies for a life assured.

A 3 month stand down period and a 14 day survival period applies. Exclusions apply for any pre-existing or congenital conditions.

Your clients have the option to add cover for "own occupation" Total Permanent Disablement (TPD) as a claimable condition under Comprehensive Living Assurance.

If your clients select this option, an "own occupation" TPD condition is added as a full payment condition under Comprehensive Living Assurance.

This does not change the Comprehensive Living Assurance sum assured, but widens coverage to include conditions not otherwise covered under Comprehensive Living Assurance, which lead to total and permanent disability.

The optional TPD condition expires at age 65, and does not apply to any children under the Children's Trauma Benefit or the Optional Children's and Maternity Benefit.

With the Financial Advice Benefit, Sovereign will reimburse your clients for fees of up to $2,500 (incl. GST). This is a one-off payment across all Sovereign policies for each life assured.

Why is this important?

A major health scare can reduce your client's ability to earn an income and can have a lasting effect on their financial situation. The Financial Advice Benefit provides your clients with an opportunity to obtain the advice they need to plan for their future.

This enables your clients to increase their Living Assurance following major life changes for the life assured. The specified list of events includes significant milestones in a person's life known to result in increasing financial responsibilities. These special events include: having a child, getting married, taking out or increasing a residential home loan, achieving a significant salary increase, and other major events.

The Special Events Increase Facility offers your clients the opportunity to increase their Living Assurance up to once per year without having to provide further medical information.

This benefit is available once a life assured reaches age 16, and before age 55. Please note that these increases are not available if the life assured has already suffered a condition under Living Assurance. Where a claim of another type has been notified or accepted for the life assured, Sovereign will exercise its discretion in determining if the increase can be applied based on the nature of the claim.

Why is this important?

Life changing events can increase your clients' financial responsibilities. The Special Events Increase Facility allows your clients to increase their cover without having to provide further medical information for a life assured following a specified special event.

This allows your clients to increase their sum assured at every third policy anniversary. The Future Insurability Benefit does not require any specific events to occur and clients don't need to provide further medical information.

This benefit is available once a life assured reaches age 16, and before age 55. Please note that these increases are not available if the life assured has already suffered a condition under Living Assurance. Where a claim of another type has been notified or accepted for the life assured, Sovereign will exercise its discretion in determining if the increase can be applied based on the nature of the claim.

Why is this important?

Life changing events can increase your clients' financial responsibilities. If your client does not experience one of the special events, they can still choose to increase their cover at every third policy anniversary.

A great option for growing businesses, the Business Safeguard Facility provides your clients with the option to increase their benefit as their financial interests or their financial value to the business increases, without having to provide further medical information.

Why is this important?

This allows the Living Assurance cover to keep pace with changes in your client's business responsibilities.

This optional benefit provides cover for a number of minor cancer conditions that are treatable and non-life threatening at the early stages of diagnosis. The Early Stage Cancer benefit pays 25% of the original sum assured (up to $50,000) and does not reduce Living Assurance for a life assured.

A 3 month stand down period and a 14 day survival period applies. Exclusions apply for any pre-existing or congenital conditions.

Why is this important?

By accessing a benefit payment at the early stages of a cancer diagnosis, your clients may choose to access specialist treatment before the cancer develops.

This optional benefit allows your clients to maintain the level of their Living Assurance by reinstating the benefit amount following a claim and without having to provide further medical information (a 12 month survival period applies and exclusions apply for any conditions that are related to the condition originally claimed for). Your clients can select this option for either standalone Living Assurance or for accelerated Living Assurance on a TotalCareMax Life Cover policy.

Why is this important?

This optional benefit allows your clients to restore their Living Assurance so that they can claim for unrelated medical conditions.

This optional benefit allows your clients to reinstate the original TotalCareMax Life Cover benefit following an accelerated Living Assurance claim and without having to provide further medical information. Minimum survival periods apply and reinstatements are not permitted if the life assured is eligible for a Life Cover Terminal Illness Benefit or the Specified Terminal Conditions Benefit.

Why is this important?

This is a great option to ensure that your client's Life Cover remains adequate.

All future enhancements to TotalCareMaxwill automatically be applied to your client's policy and the provision (or wording) that is most favourable to your client will be applied at claim time.

Please note that any enhancements apply in respect of those claims where the claim event date occurs after the date of enhancement.

Why is this important?

Your clients will automatically benefit from any favourable future changes to our TotalCareMax product range. This helps to ensure that your clients' policies remain contemporary and continue to deliver value long after the policy was purchased.

Sovereign offers its Specialist and Diagnostic Testing Benefit with Best Doctors^* as an optional benefit with Living Assurance. This benefit can make a real difference to the timeliness and choice of your clients' specialist medical advice. The Specialist and Diagnostic Testing Benefit provides coverage of up to $5,000 per year for specialist consultations, diagnostic imaging and tests. In addition, Best Doctors offers your clients the opportunity to seek a second opinion from an international network of medical specialists. Some specialists and diagnostic tests are not covered.

Please note that this optional benefit is subject to its own terms and conditions which differ from Living Assurance. Please refer to the applicable policy document.

Why is this important?

• The New Zealand public health system provides quality emergency care and treatment for serious conditions. However, rising health care costs continue to put pressure on the public system's ability to offer prompt access to specialist consultations and diagnostic tests. Sovereign's Specialist and Diagnostic Testing Benefit enables your clients to access timely specialist advice so that their medical conditions can be promptly diagnosed.

• Best Doctors' offers your clients and their families remote access to over 53,000 leading medical specialists worldwide. They have all been nominated by their peers as top experts in their field, and are there to help your clients.

Access an Expert: Easy access to the world's best medical minds for advice and guidance on any medical condition.

Find an Expert: Face to face consultations with a broad range of medical specialists in your clients' area.

DocOnline: Unlimited access for clients to send medical questions to experienced, local GPs, with a response within 48 hours.

Multimedia medical library: Access to hundreds of articles, videos and blogs on a wide range of medical conditions.

* Best Doctors is a trademark of Best Doctors, Inc., in the United States and other countries, and is used under licence.