westpac future cover policy document · pdf file future cover policy in place at any one time....

Westpac Future Cover

policy document

Issued by Westpac Life Insurance Services Limited (‘Westpac Life’) ABN 31 003 149 157

Effective date: 9 July 2008

Your future is our future

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Welcome.

This document sets out the conditions of your policy.

Please contact our Customer Relations Centre on 131 817 if you have any questions on this policy or your insurance needs.

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what would you like to know?

A Things to read first Keep this booklet safe – it’s your contract with us

Who is insured and who do we pay?

When does this policy start?

You have a cooling-off period to decide whether you want to keep this policy

We relied on what you told us – your duty of disclosure

What your duty of disclosure requires

What happens if you do not follow these instructions?

This policy is not a savings or investment policy

Changing to a new policy may not be in your best interests

Where we put your money

B What this policy is about

C Death Benefit When we will pay

How much we will pay

When we will not pay

What happens after we pay

D Terminal Illness Benefit When we will pay

What evidence do we require

How much we will pay

When we will not pay

What happens after we pay

E Accidental Death Benefit When we will pay

How much we will pay

When we will not pay

What happens after we pay

F Making a claim How and when to make a claim

We can ask for more information

Proof of age

Tax

G The amounts you have to pay What you have to pay

Policy fee

Calculating your premium

Changes to your premium

When you have to pay premiums

What happens if you don’t pay your premiums when they are due

Tax

H Automatic annual increase Increasing the benefit by the automatic annual increase

You can decide not to have the automatic annual increases

I General Notices

Relevant law

Currency

Changes to your policy

Increases to benefit levels

If you have an enquiry or complaint

J Ending this policy

K Memoranda of Transfer

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A Things to read first Keep this booklet safe – it’s your contract with us

Who is insured and who do we pay?

1.1 You should keep this policy document and your policy schedule in a safe place. You will need these documents if you make a claim. You may also want to check something.

1.2 Your insurance contract comprises:

■ this policy document;

■ your policy schedule;

■ your application or acceptance forms (as applicable); and

■ any other document provided in connection with this insurance, which we tell you forms part of your contract.

1.3 This policy and the policy schedule are evidence of your policy contract with us and set out details of the insurance we provide you. We recommend you read them carefully. If there is something that you don’t understand, please call us on 131 817.

2 In this policy document:

■ the person whose life is insured is called the ‘insured person’. There may only be one insured person; and

■ the person who owns the policy and is paid the benefit is called the ‘policyowner’. We refer to this person as ‘you’ or ‘your’;

■ At the Commencement Date of this policy both the policyowner and the insured person are the same person.

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When does this policy start?

You have a cooling- off period to decide whether you want to keep this policy

3.1 Cover under this policy starts on the ‘Commencement Date’ shown in the policy schedule.

3.2 Each year we review the premium that you pay. We do this on the anniversary of the Commencement Date. We call this anniversary the ‘Review Date’.

4.1 You have 14 days starting from the earlier of:

■ the date you receive your policy document and policy schedule; or

■ the end of the 5th business day after the day on which we issue the policy to you,

to decide whether to keep or cancel your policy and receive a refund – this is known as the cooling-off period.

4.2 If you want to cancel it within this 14-day cooling-off period, you may write to us at Westpac Life Insurance Services Limited, GPO Box 524, Sydney NSW 2001 or call 131 817.

4.3 If you decide to cancel your policy within the cooling-off period, we will cancel your policy once we have received your request and will refund any premiums you have paid (except any amounts of tax or duties which we are unable to recover). Please note that you cannot exercise your right of cooling-off if you have made a claim under the policy.

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We relied on what you told us – your duty of disclosure

What your duty of disclosure requires

5.1 This policy is based on the fact that you:

■ provided the information we requested in the application honestly, completely and accurately; and

■ read and understood the material in the Product Disclosure Statement. This is very important. For your convenience, we repeat some of that information below.

Please read it again.

5.2 Before we decided to issue this policy, we needed to know exactly what risk we were insuring and how likely it would be that you would make a claim. You must be completely honest in telling us what we need to know to decide:

■ whether to give insurance;

■ how much to charge for it; and

■ whether any special conditions should apply.

5.3 For these reasons, you should have answered all the questions that we asked honestly, completely and accurately. In addition, you should have told us about anything else you know, or a reasonable person in the circumstances could be expected to know, that was relevant to our decision whether to insure you and, if so, on what terms. If your health, occupation or pastimes have changed between the time you provided the information (or request for reinstatement) that we required, and the time we sent this policy (or reinstate your policy) to you, you must tell us. If you have not already told us, you must do so now.

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What happens if you do not follow these instructions?

This policy is not a savings or investment policy

Changing to a new policy may not be in your best interests

Where we put your money

5.4 If you do not follow these instructions, we may be able to cancel the policy or any of its benefits or reduce the amount we pay on any claim you make under it. If you act fraudulently, we may be able to cancel the policy or any of its benefits and not have to pay benefits. So, if you think that you may not have followed the instructions, please tell us now.

6 This is not a savings or investment policy. It has no surrender or cash value:

■ you are not entitled to any payment if you end the policy; and

■ you are not entitled to share in any profit or surplus.

7 If you are not satisfied with this policy, please speak to us. We may be able to change the policy to satisfy you. If you change to a new policy, we may need to reassess the health of the insured person. Also, you may lose some benefits that you have under this policy.

8 We pay your premiums into a statutory fund called the Westpac Life Insurance Services Limited Statutory Fund Number 1, and benefits under your policy are paid out from that fund. The Life Insurance Act 1995 contains rules designed to protect the money in the fund.

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B What this policy is about 9.1 This is a term life policy. Under this

policy, we will pay you a lump sum benefit if the insured person dies. The policy schedule shows the type of benefit that applies to your policy. If the benefit shown in the schedule is:

■ an ‘Accidental Death Benefit’, only death of the insured person caused by an Accident is covered; or

■ a ‘Full Death Benefit’, death from any cause is covered (‘Death Benefit’). We will also pay a lump sum benefit if the insured person suffers a terminal illness. We call this a ‘Terminal Illness Benefit’. You cannot receive both a Death Benefit and a Terminal Illness Benefit in respect of the insured person under this policy.

9.2 You can only have one Westpac Future Cover policy in place at any one time. If another Westpac Future Cover policy is already in place when this policy commences, we will void this policy/ies from inception. We will refund all premiums if we void your policy (except any amounts of tax or duties which we are unable to recover), and it will be as if the policy never existed.

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