Written by: John Mahar
Motivational Speaker on Income Protection and Road Safety
After joining the Insurance Industry with T&G at age 24 as an agent, I enjoyed excellent sales success and was appointed Divisional Manager of the Bendigo office at age 28. I continued in that role for the next 14 years with National Mutual after the T&G merger.
Now 62, I'm a husband, a dad, and a grandfather. I'm also in the unenviable position where I can speak with authority on a fatal car crash in which I received serious life threatening injuries; the result from which I was classed as unemployable at age 42.
At the time of the car crash I was married with four daughters (two at private secondary college and one at University), I was a successful agency manager and of course we had a mortgage, leased cars, education commitments etc. etc.
On a beautiful Sunday afternoon my working life was taken from me in the most violent of ways when I was involved in a horrific car crash in which an 18 year old girl was killed. Thank heavens the crash wasn't my fault! At that time I didn't know that I was about to face years of rehabilitation and counseling.
Four months after the crash my employment was terminated, and soon after that the doctors would tell me that I would never work again. By this time I was already receiving my Income Protection benefits, the regular fortnightly payment that would become our financial lifeblood for the next 16.5 years.
With the help of doctors and my family I worked hard at recovering my mental and physical self, only to be dealt the cruelest of blows just thirty months after my car crash, when our youngest daughter Carmen (age 18) was killed in a car crash.
My story is a journey and I tell of the Income Protection benefits that my family relied on after it had its livelihood stripped from it when I was just 42 years old. I tell of the heartache of losing Carmen in a car crash, I tell of the fight to become a financial contributor to our household and family again.
I have a burning desire to change the thinking of advisers who don't place enough emphasis on risk protection for the client who is relying on their advice. I now know that Income Protection is the most valuable insurance protection for a family when a scenario such as what happened to me strikes down the breadwinner.
This presentation is confronting and personal, it's thought provoking and factual and it will do for Income Protection something that has never been done before, it will make advisers and clients alike understand the need to secure the one thing that makes their financial life tick, their income!