Total & Permanent Disability Cover (TPD) Overview

Total & Permanent Disability (TPD) Cover provides a lump sum payment should you completely lose your ability to ever work again (or carry on your normal tasks, if you are not employed), as a result of illness or injury. TPD Cover is designed to help alleviate the significant financial impact that losing an income forever would likely cause. The lump sum can help reduce debt, purchase specialised equipment, pay for home modifications, provide additional care, create an investment fund to generate ongoing income or to enable business ownership to be restructured, amongst other things. The purpose of the funds is entirely yours to decide.

Early payment of Life Cover or Standalone TPD Cover
You have the choice to select Accelerated TPD Cover which means in the event of a claim all or part of your Life Cover is paid out. Alternatively you can select a Standalone TPD Cover which pays a lump sum which does not reduce any other cover you might have. The Accelerated TPD Cover is less expensive than the Standalone TPD Cover.

Own or Any Occupation Definition
You have the choice of selecting an Own Occupation Definition for an additional premium. This means that the TPD sum insured will be payable if you are totally and permanently unable to ever do the specific type of job you were employed in immediately prior to becoming disabled – even if you could do some other type of job. This is particularly valuable for those in very specific areas of work such as brain surgeons who, theoretically, could continue to be GP’s even if they could no longer be brain surgeons due to something like nerve damage in the hands. An Own Occupation Definition would pay out in these circumstances.

Buying back claimed cover
You can purchase an additional Life Cover Buy Back Option which allows you to reinstate any Life Cover which is reduced by an Accelerated TPD Cover claim, provided the life assured survives
12 months following the claim.

Premium Review Periods
You can choose from the following premium review periods for your TPD cover:

Yearly Stepped – Your premiums are based on your current age and sum insured and are adjusted each year on your policy anniversary.

Level To Age 65, 70, and 80 Non Guaranteed – Premiums remain the same until you reach your selected age, at which time the premium structure automatically reverts to yearly renewable term. Premiums only change in line with any general rates changes or changes to your sum insured until
your selected age. Level to Age 70, and 80 Non Guaranteed – are only available for Accelerated TPD Cover.

5% Stepped, 10 Year Guaranteed – Premiums are guaranteed to only increase by the fixed 5% step on every anniversary during each 10 year period. Premiums otherwise only change in line with any changes to your sum insured during each 10 year period.

No Wait Benefit
The 90 day stand down period does not apply if the Total or Permanent Disability is caused by:
Alzheimer’s Disease
Cardiomyopathy
Chronic Lung Disease
Dementia
Diplegia
Hemiplegia
Major Head Injury
Motor Neurone Disease
Multiple Sclerosis
Muscular Dystrophy
Paraplegia
Parkinson’s Disease
Permanent Blindness
Permanent Deafness
Permanent Loss of Speech
Primary Pulmonary Hypertension
Quadriplegia
Tetraplegia.

Continuing cover into retirement
Cover continues even past the traditional expiry age of 65 as long as you continue to have Life Cover included on your policy. The maximum amount of TPD Cover payable from age 65 onwards will be limited to the Life Cover sum insured and any payment under the TPD Cover will reduce the Life Cover sum insured accordingly.

The definition of TPD changes from the ability to work to a non
occupational definition once you reach age 65.

It’s not all or nothing
Partners Life will also pay you an early Partial and Permanent Disability Benefit of 25% of the TPD Cover sum insured up to a maximum of $300,000 if you suffer one of the following serious, permanent impairments – even though you may not be totally and permanent unable to work as a result:

Loss of use of one hand
Loss of use of one foot
Loss of sight in one eye
Loss of hearing in one ear
Progressive loss of sight or hearing

Bringing you home
If you have been working or living overseas for more than 3 months when you suffer a total and permanent disability and you wish to Return to Home Benefit, your TPD Cover includes a Return to Home Benefit which will reimburse you for the costs of bringing yourself and a companion home to New Zealand (up to certain limits).

Treatment away from home
If your recommended treatment has to happen outside of your residential region, then your TPD Cover includes a Support Person Accommodation and Transport Costs Benefit which will reimburse you for up to 10 days accommodation costs and all transport costs for your support person (up to certain limits).

Counselling
There is also provision for counselling under the Counselling Benefit which reimburses any fees up to a maximum of $2,500. This is payable in addition to the TPD sum insured.

Expert assistance
If you or your family would like assistance with managing the proceeds of a TPD Cover claim, your TPD Cover provides a Financial and Legal Advice Benefit which reimburses the costs of a financial
planner and/or lawyer up to a maximum of $2,500, which is payable in addition to your TPD Cover sum insured.

Special events increases
Partners Life recognises there are a number of special events which can trigger a need to increase your TPD Cover. The Special Events Increase Benefit allows your TPD Cover sum insured to be increased (certain restrictions and limits apply) without further health assessment for the following special events:

Marriage or civil union
Divorce or legal separation
Becoming full-time carer for a dependent relative
Birth or adoption of a child
Taking out or increasing a mortgage
Purchasing a residential property, residential investment property, vacation home or bare residential land
A dependent child starting full-time tertiary study
An increase in annual salary
Death or Terminal Illness of a spouse, defacto partner or civil union partner
Every 5th policy anniversary

Option to increase cover in the future
In addition to the increase options under the Special Events Increase Benefit and automatic inflation adjustments, you can also purchase a Future Insurability Option which allows further increases to your TPD Cover sum insured each year without further assessment (up to certain limits).

Future proofing the value of your cover
To ensure your TPD Cover can continue to deliver the same real value to you as when you first purchased it, your TPD Cover sum insured will automatically increase by inflation adjustment each
year and so will your premiums, unless you have a level premium review period and you selected a no indexation option.

These increases apply irrespective of any changes to your health after your TPD Cover starts.

You also have an option to set a minimum inflation rate of 5% so even when the inflation rate falls below this level your TPD Cover sum insured will still increase by 5%. You can choose to decline any increase in any given year without losing the automatic increase in following years, so you really have the best of both worlds – automatic rights to increase with no obligation to do so.

No Indexation Option
If you have selected a level premium review period to age 65, 70 or 80 you can also choose a no indexation option.

Turning claims promises into reality
Partners Life goes so much further than paying lip service to the way in which we will manage claims. Our intention to manage claims fairly and ethically, irrespective of what the law might allow
us to do as a life insurer, is a legally binding promise. We have included our commitment to our claims philosophy into our policy wordings – so we are contractually obliged to behave this way –
and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Rewarding partnership for life
Partners Life is passionate about sharing the value we create over time with you. Rather than solely focusing on incentivising new customers to join, we also want to reward clients who are loyal
to us. Your Partners Protection Plan includes an increasing Loyalty Premium Discount over time to your TPD Cover premium. So you can take comfort that you will pay increasingly less for your TPD
Cover than new clients to the company will. The discounts that apply start from the 2nd anniversary and increase each year by 1% until reaching 10%. Policies with a level premium review period
automatically include an averaged loyalty premium discount, therefore an additional discount does not apply.

Help when it’s really needed
A premium holiday is available to you to provide financial relief during difficult times without losing your valuable cover. In the tragic event that you lose a spouse or child, are made redundant or
bankrupt or are forced to leave work to care for a relative who has become dependent on you due to ill health, your Partners Protection Plan provides up to 6 months of free TPD Cover, while you rearrange your financial affairs.

Alternatively your premiums and cover may be suspended for up to 12 months if you need temporary financial relief due to overseas travel, parental leave, extended periods of leave without pay or even if you decide to embark on some additional full-time study. At the end of the suspension period you can restart your TPD Cover without being reassessed.

Keeping your Partners Protection Plan up to date
Partners Life guarantees to automatically apply any future enhancements we make to TPD Cover to your policy, provided there is no additional premium required for those enhancements.

Worldwide cover
Your TPD Cover is valid wherever you may be in the world.