Success Story
Peta Currie
How Peta Currie protected her family with a comprehensive insurance policy
For Peta Currie, family has always been the thing that mattered most. As a single parent to two children, Peta was the sole provider for her family, and she worked hard to create a comfortable life for her children.
Alongside her brother Tim, Peta owned and ran a successful timber wholesale company – a business that had once belonged to their parents. Business was booming, and it wasn’t unusual for Peta to work up to 60 hours a week just to keep up with demand.
Tim was a friend of Rising Tide Financial Service’s Matt Hale, and the pair had known each other for many years since their footy days. Wanting to ensure their business was well-protected, Tim sought Matt’s advice.
Alongside a variety of business-related advice, Matt encouraged Tim and Peta to take out life and total permanent disability (TPD) insurance, as well as income protection insurance. While it seemed like an added experience they might not really need, Tim and Peta trusted Matt, and followed his advice shortly after.
Everything was running smoothly, until one day in September of 2014, Peta came down with flu-like symptoms, and sought advice from her GP. Due to the nature of her work, Peta didn’t have the option of taking time off, so she continued on and began taking a medication intended to reduce the severity of her symptoms.
A few days later, Peta was feeling worse and worse, and after another trip to the GP, it was suspected that she was battling a sinus infection, and she was handed a course of antibiotics. However, less than 24 hours later, Peta began to experience paralysis in her body and was rushed straight to the emergency room.
In excruciating pain, Peta had experienced stroke-like symptoms, before suffering a major stroke in hospital which would later lead to a permanent disability. For a fit and healthy woman in her early 40s, still playing netball 3-4 times a week – Peta’s condition was anything but normal, and still to this day, Peta has not been able to receive a clear diagnosis of what brought on this condition.
‘At the time, I really wasn’t very aware of what was going on around me, and in all honesty I think it was harder for my family than it was for me. At one point after I had the stroke, they didn’t think that I was going to make it and they brought my children in to say goodbye. They were 13 and 15,’ said Peta.
Thankfully, Peta was able to pull through and is back at home and living with her family. However, the condition is something that she will need to manage with intensive medication for the rest of her life. Peta’s life had changed dramatically in the space of a few weeks, but one thing she was able to depend on was the fact that no matter what happened, her kids would always be looked after.
Having taken out a comprehensive insurance plan, Matt and Tim were able to file a claim on Peta’s behalf while she was battling in hospital, and after 30 days off work, Peta was receiving regular insurance payments to cover all of her family’s expenses while she was unable to work. The income protection insurance covered 75% of her pre disability income, an amount she will continue to receive for the rest of her life.
Due to the fact that Peta’s condition was and still is largely unknown, it took a long time for her permanent disability claim to be finalised, but once her medical team could confidently sign off on the fact she would never recover, she was able to receive a lump sum payout in addition to her ongoing payments to help fill in any gaps and set her family up for the years to come.
‘To know that we have this income to rely on is such an amazing help. Throughout my life, my parents have always tried to help me, but that’s not who I am. I’m the sort of person who likes to be financially dependent, so to know that this won’t need to change is something that means a lot to me,’ says Peta.
‘While it’s fantastic to receive the income, I know that all of the paperwork can be really challenging for some people, and Matt has been a fantastic help. His communication was excellent, and he would constantly touch base to give me updates or check how I was doing. If a payment didn’t come through, I could always get in touch with him and he’d follow it up for me and find out what was happening.’
‘Since it happened, I’ve always told people to take out life and TPD Insurance, and most importantly, to go through someone like Rising Tide Financial Services who can help you. It’s not easy, and when you’re trying to deal with everything else, this is the last thing you want to worry about. Matt and Rising Tide were behind me the whole way, and I’m so grateful for that.’
To find out more about taking out life and TPD Insurance, we encourage you to get in touch with the team at Rising Tide Financial Services. Our expert advisers can help you work out what’s right for your family, and most importantly, take the stress out of protecting your family’s future.