GE Money Insurance offers insurance solutions as part of their day to day finance services along with credit cards and loans. They have expertise in Australia and New Zealand, serving more than 3.1 million customers. They can be found through several branches, partners, brokers and even the internet.

Judging by their website, there are currently about four products to choose from. They range from everyday products to more credit related ones.

There is no saying that car insurance is something we all want to take out, and with GE Money you are given three different covers to choose from. Through my eyes, the names of the three covers are very similar to most other car insurers; Comprehensive, Third party property, fire and theft, and Third party property only. I think for drivers that want to lower their road risks as much as possible, the comprehensive cover is the one to choose because it includes everything that a decent person would need, including benefits that are not available to the other plans.

To prove my words, some of the things that really got me overwhelmed are lifetime guarantee on repairs, new car replacement, accommodation cover and no claim discount. What I love about GE Money is that they even offer optional benefits such as windscreen excess reduction and roadside assistance to give you more coverage.

Did you know that GE Money’s travel insurance has won Canstar’s award for being the outstanding value? This definitely opened my eyes about their products. What really impressed me is the fact they offer all the comprehensive coverage for things like baggage and personal items, liability, medical expenses and more. Policies can be bought in single or multi-trip under individual and family rates.

Coming to the more credit inspired policies, the first one is personal loan insurance. The thing that I like about this plan is that you will be able to make a claim if for some reason you are unable to repay your debts. Examples of events that I found to be very useful that you can make a claim is when you lose your job that was not your fault (involuntary unemployment cover), you are sick/disabled, or if you die.

The next product is known as credit card insurance, and is used to protect you from unexpected events. The thing that I found very interesting is that a policy will protect you from your purchases if you paid for it using your card, or if you are unable to pay back the amount you owe due to unforeseen circumstances.

Central West Health Cover, I found out, is a regional health fund that caters for the special needs of people that are living outside metropolitan areas. Looking at the overview on their homepage, there are six different covers that you can choose from.

First up, you can individually get hospital and extras cover under two plans; Comprehensive Hospital Cover and Extras Cover. The first plan is great for singles, families and couples because it has a wide range of hospital services. The best thing about this cover as I can see is that it pays 100% of the costs of a private or shared room as long as the hospital is one of the contracted private hospitals, or if it is a public hospital.

The other plan that only offers extras cover comes with more than 20 features, which I thought are all very useful with things like major dental, dietetics, ambulance, podiatry, optical and many more.

If you are someone that wants the best of both plans, the highest plan that I saw that I was really impressed by is known as Comprehensive Hospital & Top Extras Cover. Going through the things included, I figured it would be great for members that want to saved money because I learnt that under this plan, you won’t have to pay excess for overnight hospital stay, but at the same time, you want to control when and where you receive hospital treatments, and who you will be treated by. In terms of Extras, you can be sure you will be able to get the best coverage for things like pharmacy, general dental, home nursing and plenty more.

While browsing Central West Health Cover’s website, I was surprised to see some special plans designed for different life stages. The first one that caught my eyes is a plan known as Young & Healthy Cover. The thing that impressed me is that it includes all the things that are likely to be used by young people, and remove things that are not likely to be used. The advantage of this approach is that premiums will be cheaper and more specially tailored.

The other plan known as Family Health Cover also has a similar approach, but for families.

When it is time to claims, there are different ways to which you can lodge your application that depends if it is for Extras Cover or Hospital Cover. Both of them include downloading and printing a claim form that needs to be filled in.

Under 30 Travel Insurance is located in Queensland and gives you the advantage of enjoying cheaper quotes and premiums if you are below the age of 30. They are underwritten by Allianz, and as soon as I saw this I knew that the biggest advantage policyholders will get are affordable prices and excellent cover.

The first thing that I did was get a test quote to a random country of my choice. At the final page that displayed the amount, I almost though the cost I arrived at was a joke because it was so low. I repeated the procedure again and sure enough, I returned to the same quote.

The important thing is Under 30 Travel Insurance covers both overseas and international trips.

I was glad to find out that the overseas package is a comprehensive cover, which means you can be sure you will get beyond the essential features. Policies can be taken out in single or group policies. I thought having the option to take out group cover was great as many young people tend to travel together. And about the excess, they were all quite low; only up to $100 for things like hospital expenses, credit card fraud, personal effects and morel.

Moving onto their other coverage, I think the limits are all to a great level. You are able to claim up to $50,000 for family emergencies, and this is for both single and group claims. Other aspects that I was very impressed with are the limits of up to $3,000 for resumption of journey, $1,000 for luggage and personal effects, and $5,000 for alternative transport expenses.

In the domestic cover, only seven protections are offered but are very useful enough though the cover is not comprehensive. The list includes family emergency, accidental death, luggage, cancellation fees, disrupted journey, liability and rental vehicle. To my surprise, the claim limits were very close to the overseas comprehensive cover.

I had a quick review on their claim process and I found it to be very easy to do. The claim form that you need to download only contains eight pages, which I think is a reasonable amount. After you have filled it in, the next thing to do is to send it their office. On the other hand, if you find yourself in an emergency, there is a list of numbers that you can call from whichever country you are in. These numbers are accessible 24/7.

Online Travel Insurance is a choice to consider as another way to save on travel insurance. The first thing to know is that when you are purchasing through them, you are actually purchasing from Allianz as that is their underwriter. Knowing this fact, I was impressed to know that not only will my premiums be cheaper; I will also be offered protection by one of the biggest risk companies in Australia.

Unlike other standard insurers, Online Travel Insurance offers only two types of available plans that are made for travelling overseas as well as domestic travels.

Plan Number 1: Comprehensive Travel Insurance

Of all policies, I always prefer the one with the highest cover. Looking through the comprehensive benefits offered, I was proud to say that all the features met my expectation. Two plans exist; International and Domestic cover. Obviously, the plan for travelling overseas will contain higher limits and more protection as they are much more needed when leaving the country.

Concentrating on the International Cover, I was glad to see that there are unlimited claims for cancellation fees and lost deposits. This I found to be very important as some of the reasons why you may find this feature useful may be due to things outside your control like sickness, strikes and even natural disasters, and as we know, things like this can happen anytime and is usually the most expensive to recover from. Other unlimited covers that I found very worthwhile to take note on are medical assistance, and medical expenses.

In terms of claim limits for other benefits, I learned that additional expense reaches up to $50,000, accidental death reaches up to $25,000, replacement documents, credit cards and traveller cheques up to $10,000; all I found to be very reasonable.

Plan Number 2: Cancellation Travel Insurance

One of the unique approaches Online Travel Insurance takes is that if you do not take the comprehensive cover, your only other option is to get the lowest cover, in this case Cancellation Travel Insurance. As distinguished by its name, it only offers coverage for cancellations and lost deposits. In my opinion, this is really not enough. It does not cover for medical expenses or lost assets.

Once you have made up your mind, you can easily get a quote and purchase your policy direct from their website. If you have any enquires, simply give them a call which is free from all landlines. This I found to be a very big advantage.

Health Partners is a private health fund from South Australia with more than 70 years of history. I had a look through their timeline and achievements, and right away, I was overwhelmed by all the things they have done throughout the years such as introducing a pharmacy scheme and opening an optical centre. According to their website, they currently have more than 25,000 members, a number which I found to be very fascinating.

At my first glance, the first type of insurance offered is Hospital Cover, something almost every health fund offers. There are four different plans ranked by Gold, Silver, Bronze and Bronze Plus. My favourite one was the Gold Hospital plan because I thought all the things they offered were very high quality and valuable. For example, the things that put a smile on my face included home nursing, post admission, home sleep studies, and even management of chronic conditions like bone density test and diabetes education.

I was also pleased to see that there is full ambulance cover to make sure you can get access to a hospital when you are injured, as well as something known as Home Health Partner that helps you leave hospital earlier. I thought all these products were very innovative and will surely benefit their customers.

Another thing that caught my off guard is their Lifetime Health Cover. According to what is written, it is a Federal Government initiative design to enough people to take out Hospital Cover earlier in their lives. The main advantage is that you can make lower contributions throughout your insured life.

The other insurance is the Extra Cover that gives you access to things beyond hospitalisation. When looking out for the benefits included in Extras Covers, I always make sure the features include things that are likely to be used and in this case, Health Partners really met my expectation. For example, customers will be able to benefit from dental, optical, Pilates, speech therapy and many more. Looking at their limits, I am glad to say that the amount were very reasonable, reaching up to $1,000 for major dental services and $350 for optical.

Just so you know, I also found out that the health fund is partnered with several practitioners such as dental, pharmacy and physio. The locations for these partners were available on their website.

To see how Health Partners will be able to benefit you, make sure you go and check out their website. You will be given the option to look through their information and even join.

Fast Cover is known to offer simple travel insurance that won’t leave you in a daze. This can easily be proven by the way they have shrunk their plans into two simple packages; Single Trip and Annual Multi Trip. At first I was a bit wary with only two plans, however I was soon proved wrong by the high quality features I found out.

One thing that I was amazed with is that the two plan listed on Fast Cover’s website actually includes other plans.

The most attractive one with the highest cover is known as Comprehensive. It can be taken out in single, duo and family policies. First of all, I was glad to see that they unlimited cancellation fees and overseas medical assistance/expenses. However the only thing that I found to be different is that there is a limit of up to $500 for dental expenses.

Now, the next thing that really overwhelmed me is their limits for additional expenses. Fast Cover offered up to $100,000 for families, and in my opinion, this is way more than any other insurer I have seen. Seeing this number would definitely give the traveller a peace of mind that they will be safe. Other benefits include up to $50,000 for accidental death, $10,000 for loss/stolen documents, cheques and credit cards. Luggage and personal effects can be paid out up to $500.

By the way I also saw that if you are going to the snow, there is also a Comprehensive cover with snow cover included. It is basically the same as the normal Comprehensive cover only with the extension of getting snow cover.

Next off, the other plan I thought was worthwhile to include is the Domestic cover for people staying in Australia. The only unlimited feature is cancellation fees and lost deposits, and there is no coverage for medical expenses, but then again, all Australians would have access to Medicare anyways. About their additional expenses cover, it was the same with the Comprehensive Cover amount which I thought was amazing. Also, this policy automatically covers snow and ski like equipment hire, piste closure and bad weather.

One important thing to take into consideration is making a claim. To launch your application, the only thing you need tod is give them a call. On Fast Cover’s website, there is a page that lists all the numbers that you can call depending on which country you are in, which I thought was very thoughtful of them. This way you won’t have to be charged with paying expensive overseas call by to Australia.

Car insurance can be simple and on the spot with Avea Insurance. One interesting fact about them is that they have been in the industry for more than 30 years, and most importantly, they are a 100% Australian owned company. This means you will be able to trust their service through their many years of experience. According to their website they are currently based in Victoria. A free call is also available to contact them.

It seems that Avea is still a traditional insurance because there are no options on their website to get a quote. I guess this is fine as long as they have a contact page where you can call to purchase a new policy.

Generally speaking, the main product offered by Avea is motor vehicle insurance. This includes insuring cars and other automobiles alike. I found out that their options of levels are very similar to other insurers such as Third party property damage, Fire, theft and third party property damage, and Comprehensive cover. I was pretty much content with the cooling down period, which is 14 days.

Going through the comprehensive cover, I was more than impressed with all the key features. For example, all the common things are included like damage, fire, theft, towing and liabilities. What caught my eyes though is the feature known as Faultless Basic Excess where.

A very similar policy for motorcycle is known as their motorcycle insurance, and comes with the same plan names.

A unique and interesting cover that I saw offered is tyre and wheel insurance. I have never seen an insurer offering such product as a stand along policy. The advantage of this plan, as I can see, is that you will be able to get repair and even replacement if your tyre gets damaged. The limit is $800 per year which I think is more than enough for most drivers. On the other hand, up to $1,100 can be claimed on wheels per year.

Other insurance policies offered by Avea include:

• Extended mechanical insurance
• Total assist insurance
• Bill reimbursement insurance
• Loan termination insurance
• Gap insurance
• Credit insurance

Of the entire company, I’ve got to say the most useful aspect to be able to lodge a claim online. In order to do so you must enter your licence number, birthday and surname. Everything else after that was pretty much straightforward.

To see more information and the other products offered by Avea, please do not hesitate to visit their website.