Hello, my name's Santasha Nabananga Bamblet. I'm a proud yr the Order Kerni Whalbury and a waddery woman. And before we get started on She's on the Money podcast, I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land of which this podcast is recorded on a wondery country, acknowledging the elders, the ancestors and the next generation coming through.
As this podcast is about connecting, empowering, knowledge sharing and the storytelling of you to make a difference for today and lasting impact for tomorrow.
Let's get into it.
She's on the Money, She's on the Money.
Hello, and welcome to She's on the Money, the podcast for millennials who want financial freedom. There is no doubt about it that Australia is the lucky country. The standard of living, access to healthcare, quality of life for most people compared to international standards is kind of high, and perhaps as a reflection of this, Aussies are also some of the most underinsured people on the planet too, isn't that right?
Pet I go on and on and on about this. This ain't my first rodeo, my love, but it seems like all this luck has given us a very very false sense of security, and there's a reason that she'll be right is a national saying. But you can never know what is around the corner with your health, which is exactly why Beck. Today we are talking about the cost of care and we have a very special guest who joins us today, my friend Rhiann and Tracy.
Welcome to the show, My love.
I'm blushing that we're friends.
We basically became best friends a week ago. Today we met at an event on the Gold Coast for Lareel, which was really fancy. I don't know about you, but I thought it was really cool to be working with Lorel And I've posted all over my socials as have you, so clearly think it's a lit bit fancy.
We bonded over there, our mutual respect and love for kangaroo sidings, oh.
Yeah, and ta kere and take care and beauty and fashion and literally everything else. But Rhiannon, can you tell my community a little bit about yourself?
Hello, she's on the Money community. My name is Rhiannon. I'm a Scorpio, which I think is vital information for this community.
It absolutely is. You're also a community member and have been for a long time.
Absolutely, I have been living my life on wheels for the last fourteen years. So after a diving accident happened two months before my twenty first birthday, I was, I want to say gifted, but it wasn't really a gift, was it. I was a really really shooty gift and shitty gift. But you know what, I doned my hot pink set of wheels, and it's just how I roll through life now.
It is, And I literally am obsessed with your content. I feel like after hearing you speak, it was just a no brainer to drag you onto the podcast because I feel like, not only is accessibility something that we need to be talking about, but you're really open and honest and frank about these conversations and breaking down some barriers that a lot of people often find really awkward when having these conversations because you're like, oh, you can't ask that, and you're like, heck, yes you can.
It's fine. How about we talk about X, Y, and Z.
And I just think this is how we should be having conversations because they are really respectful, but it also
ultimately puts everybody in a better position. And I'm genuinely so excited to have you here and share, I guess your experience, but also talk about the research, talk about the cost of care, and talk about what it actually means, because, as Beck said before, we kind of have this false sense of security and we think that we live in the lucky country, and we think that the Australian healthcare system is the best thing in the entire world, which
is true if you've never had anything significant happen. So Medicare and the Australian health system are great, and like I said before, we are called the lucky country for a reason, so I do think we need to acknowledge that. But as good as our safety nets are, the out of pocket cost and the impact to those of us who are affected by ill health or disability can be
absolutely terrifying. And depending on the condition, the direct costs can range from hundreds of dollars too many thousands if not in your case, Rihanna, and millions of dollars, and often these are compounded by indirect costs like loss of income or impacting the sufferers or literally the people that surround you, and the cost of your family members needing
to take care of you. So Rihanna, and I want to talk about the things that I, as an ex financial advisor, find really sexy, and that's personal insurances.
So you had an accident.
You dived into a pool and came out of that pool a quadriplegic. But I want to know what was your insurance at the time of that accident and how did it help you.
I love telling this story because my mum and I we would go to Ballei every year and we would have the same argument, and that would be she would be telling me to get travel insurance. You didn't need it exactly. I wanted to buy the genuine fake Louis Vuitton bags. They're genuine, they're genuine fakes. Yeah, they've got the Gucci logo on the front backly, So it would be the same argument every year. That one hundred dollars, though,
saved my life. And I did have travel insurance, and I had it every year, and I drill it into everybody's head who travels. I had all the insurances.
And I love hearing that, and I feel like it's one of those things that as young people we just go that will never happen to me. I'm going to Bali and you know what I get it. Bali is like a budget location, so like, you're not there going this is a multi thousand dollar, you know, Europe trip where you know, an extra couple of hundred dollars is really not that much. You kind of look at Bali and I go, all right, we've got some sick, cheap
jet stuff lights. What is the cheapest best accommodation we can get? And then it just feels like insurance is one of those other burdens that you're like, I can't be bothered, but it is so worth it, And the amount of times I have had to drill into ex clients and my friends and my family, I'm like, insurance, I want it to be the biggest waste of money you've ever made.
I want you to buy it.
And not claim on it, Like that's the ideal outcome, because even though Roan and you're in a better financial position, it's kind of shitty that you had to claim on
it on the first place. And we really need to understand how government health systems and insurances interact, and I guess have a realistic appreciation of the true cost of poor health so we can judge the appropriateness of types and levels of support to best suit our circumstances, and even with private health insurance and medicare, you're often left
with a massive gap to pay. Sirianna and I have a few facts and stats, and I know you can back this up because I've literally heard you talking about this, But Hugo, did you know an Australian study investigating the effects of health care costs on individuals found that fourteen percent of adults didn't receive the recommended care due to cost. For those living with chronic health conditions, that proportion was higher at twenty four percent.
Is this a surprise? It actually still blows my mind because you know, I was twenty one when I was discharged from hospital, and not only was I unable to return to work, but my mum actually had to close her business to become my full time career because we couldn't afford caress.
There was no ndis.
I think we got seven hours of respite a week from the government, so you know week.
It's not even a full work day for someone.
I mean the amount of komochas I saw my mum throw over the back fence just because she needed some kind of mental and physical release from being my full time care heck, no, get this out of my life. But it's just absurd that these are the costs associated with living with any kind of disability or you know, physical trauma. And I mean it makes sense.
Beck, you grew up in more of a low income family, and I feel like this even stretches to I guess that side of our community where it's like, okay, cool, the cost of health care meant that you didn't receive
the recommended care due to cost. Did you ever come across that or experience it personally or see it being experienced in your community, To be honest, not a lot when I was growing up, because I guess like I just took for granted that going to the doctors and getting half priced prescription medication with a healthcare car and
things like that just made sense growing up. Actually, now that I'm older and I want to, for example, take care of my teeth, I desperately need to get wisdom teeth out, desperately need to get all these same yeah, like.
Feeling such an expensive bro seriously.
And I'm like, I can't believe that's not covered by Medicare, And so I guess it's not. Growing up, I didn't really feel it, but I can imagine that my mum would have knowing what went on behind the scenes.
Yeah, And I guess that experience makes a lot of sense because when you're little, regardless of your circumstances, your parents often or your caregivers often shelter you from that. Like your parents weren't going to tell you if they're struggling to take you to the doctor or pay for
a prescription. But as you get older, the pinch gets a little bit more real, and I feel like for our community at the moment, it's getting even more real because I'm having these conversations even just about bulk billing clinics becoming like Hen's teeth, like people like where bulk bilms, like so many doctor's clinics are now going, oh, we don't do that anymore. And to me, that's wild, and I understand why, Like they're a business. At the end of the day, going and seeing a private GP is
not a government run facility. It's actually a private business and they are running it as such, and so it's kind of up to their discretion as to whether they extend you that grace or not. However, to me, it's wild that there aren't kind of like mandates of how many bulk billing clinics are in particular areas and stuff like that. So I feel like more now than ever,
we're kind of feeling the healthcare pinch. But moving on, I have another statistic for you that won't come as a surprise to either people sitting at the table because I've shown you it before, but it might to people who were listening. Further research, so from the same study suggested that over forty percent of individuals with depression, anxiety, or other mental health conditions just completely skip treatment and other care because of the cost.
It makes sense, that's really say forty percent, are you joking?
Only sixty percent of people experiencing these things are getting the help that they need.
And the sad thing about it, and the sad I should say, the sad reality about it is the well, I don't want to say the majority, but a lot of these people who need access to these you know, mental health care and things like that are my community and people living with disabilities that require the physical care just as much as they require the mental health care.
You were talking about it in your presentation that people who already have a pre existing disability, are what three times more likely to suffer from a mental health condition, And like that makes sense because your lifestyle is already compromised and that is leading to you not feeling your like your best self, and it just to me, I just want to jump up and down about it, because
it's just so wildly unfair to me. That obviously takes into consideration absolutely no indirect cost like days off work from not being able to go to work, or the reduced working capacity of becoming a carer. And you mentioned that just before, Like your mum literally sold her business to look after you. And I mean, I'm sure if we spoke to your momum, she'd be like, oh, I wouldn't have done anything else. Like Rihannon is the one true love of my entire life. And I totally get.
That right because that's one hundred percent.
That's love and that's family, and that makes sense. But like, that doesn't mean that she wasn't impacted. That doesn't mean that.
The emotional guilt that I lived with because it was something that had happened directly to me, but indirectly to her. So she was giving up her entire life to make sure that I had some kind of quality of my own.
Yeah, And to be honest, that is so special, Like I just your mom must be the biggest legend in the entire world.
We love Shaza, we.
Love Shahaha, shas water legend. So we're going to look at some of the real costs of care now for certain different types of injuries and diseases and re we mentioned before, I would adore your insight on this. So one of my favorite pieces of research that was ever done is by Zurich. It's the Zurich White Paper on the Cost of Care. And you guys have probably heard
me talk about this before. If you're one of my financial advice clients or my ex financial advice clients, you've probably had it sent to you about a million times when I ran on and on about getting appropriately insured. But let's talk about spinal cord injury to begin with. It's not going to be a surprise to you, but I think it is going to be a massive surprise to our community that the lifetime direct cost of quadriplegia can exceed eleven million dollars for an individual.
Yeah, and it definitely still to this day makes me want to fall out of my chair when I hear those numbers, because then I look at that in comparison to the disability support pension that I was on many years ago before I realized, well, I realized then that I had no choice but to build some kind of a career of my own because I just could not afford any kind of life. I couldn't even afford the means that I needed to be able to do personal care, go to the toilet, do the things, you know, So
it absolutely blows my mind. Can we share that on the podcast?
Actually, when I had this conversation after meeting and you were like, oh my gosh, it cost me x to do this, and why can you share that with the community, because it through my mind.
There's so many hidden costs when it comes to spinal cord injury. And I always speak on the perspective of this injury because it's obviously the one that I live with, But people don't understand that it's not just what you
see is what you get injury. So, yes, somebody is paralyzed, that can be obvious, sometimes not, but we're internally paralyzed as well, which means that the injury itself has affected all of our internal organs and one of the main I guess things that is affected is our bound bladder functions. So will require not just medication but also continent aids to be able to go to the bathroom.
And they cost money.
So for example, just to paint the picture, there's no such thing as TMI when it comes to these injuries. It costs me a dollar sixty five every time I need to go and do a wee. But then you throw on top of that the cost of the medication I need to take to be able to do number twos. I worked it out a few months ago and it was actually more than what I earn on my full time wager year, So it was eighty six thousand dollars roughly, and that is based on a good day of not
drinkings of water a day. Not here as a health quick yes, and a health queen. You know, I'm not having that extra coffee a day either. But there are so many hidden costs associated which adds up to that those millions of dollars. And it still blows my mind to this day that the disability support pension is what it is. There's so many conversations around how NDIS really
does help the disability community. Well, put it this way, before the NDIS existed, that eighty six thousand dollars was coming out of mine or my family's pocket, all my communities because we did a lot of fundraisers.
Oh my gosh, it is wild to me that that would come out of your I'm so glad that the NDIES exists now and you're able to get that support because you bloody deserve it.
But the idea that that.
Is coming out of your family's income, like, I don't know where my family would get that from.
And that's not even including you know, a wheelchair. This chair that I'm sitting in now is about ten thousand dollars and that's not including the cushion.
And this is my it's not even including the cushion. They're like, that's just the base model. My god, you know, I mean it is nice.
Look the GT the GT model.
But you know, so there are so many things and there's so much conversation around the NDIES, But for me, it really has saved my life and my mental stability.
Yeah, no, I'm really grateful for it. And it's wild because it's not just you. So according to the Zurich White Paper. They're around twenty thousand, eight hundred Australians who currently live with spinal cord injuries, which you won't be surprised about, but approximately half of those were working prior to having a spinal cord injury, and they're never going to be able to return to a working role, so
they're not actually able to generate an income. That's correct, and it's wild, right, And I'm so proud of you for I guess beating those odds, which is an absolute anomaly for this type of injury. But that, honestly, from my perspective, shouldn't be something that we're proud of for you. It's something that should be given, like you should be able to work, You should be able to be catered for and have a role that makes sense with your injury.
But nine times out of ten, when you talk to someone with an injury like this, most of the reason they can't return is because they don't have the proper equipment to be able to return to full time work, or they don't have the proper support or the types of resources.
That they need.
And it drives me insane because it's like, wow, so you're saying if I had set you up properly and given you all of the rehab that you can't afford right now, and the proper chair and everything else, you could do a job that makes sense for you. Yes, the answer resolutely yes, it's.
One hundred percent, because even to this day, we are still having to prove.
What our needs are.
You know, I've still got to prove that I need the NDIS funding packages that I require, which minds on the lower spectrum, because I am independent. I don't need, you know, twenty four hours a day worth of support.
Even to get a parking permit.
I've got to prove the extent of my injury or my disability. So even though these things exist to support our community, it doesn't mean they come easy. And that's amada bullshit.
That's something it really confuses me as well, because obviously there are different I guess there are different levels of disability, and some of them can be overcome over time, right Like someone might have an injury that lasts two years and then they come out the other side of it, they don't need their income protection anymore because they can turn to full time work out their full capacity and
there's no issue moving forward. Obviously if they don't require the NDA, well they shouldn't be being paid by the NDAs correct. That makes sense. But with an injury like yours, it's permanent. Like what part of permanent does the ndis not understand, Like, surely there should be some kind of criteria that you go through and you're like, hey, cool, look at this, we came this far. Can you just tick a box to say I don't need to be reviewed again? Like, I totally understand. There are some places
that review makes sense. Yeah, but why in your situation are you in the bucket where you need to be reviewed?
And what does that process look like for you?
Oh my goodness.
It's interesting because I'm on the other side of it, whereas I have the injury, but I also have a not for profit organization that services my community. So I have an exercise physiology based facility that helps people with disabilities physically access exercise and private healthcare. And the amount of report writing and documentation that we have to put together for our athletes.
We call them athletes. It's not patients or clients. They are athletes.
Big mindset thing does to prove again that exercise is something that improves quality of life. The process is just entirely unbearable. It is mentally taxing, it's physically taxing for somebody like myself. I mean, when my body was broken, my voice became a thing. So I just get in there and I just say, this is what I want, this is what I need. But you know, I'm now looking at starting a family with my partners, so my
needs are going to change. I'm not going to be able to do the things that I do now when I'm pregnant or you know, post pregnancy, So I'm going to require more things, modifications to my car and things like that.
What are some other hidden costs or things that you know, people like Beck and I might not have even considered.
So again I'll talk from my own personal perspective.
I'll just talk to you about what I require as somebody living with an injury. Now I've got what's considered an incomplete injury. So if you look at me and then you look at five other quadriplegics, we're all going to look entirely different and our needs are going to be into highly different. So I live independently in a very unaccessible household which I'm about to move and it's out of ten.
Yeah.
Yah, so excited for that. But that in itself has been a tiring process due to accessibility and funds. But I have car modifications, so I drive a normal car. I don't have what a lot of people have. I don't have steering little utensils or whatever you want to call them on the steering wheel. I actually have a left foot accelerator and that cost money to modify, to modify it over correct the test that I required to get my license back to be able to drive said car.
That costs money.
And this was pre dis I used to have a hoist in the back of my car that would lift my chair in and out of my car. That costs money. I got rid of it because it kept breaking down. I can't not be bothering in But again, like when I'm pregnant, I'm not going to be able to be lifting my car because I'd be more focused on lifting my child.
And even just like the idea of getting a child in and out of a car like that for me really hard. And I don't even have kids, and I'm just puddling nieces and nephews out of I can't understand car seats. I get stuck with them, like you have to be up and over the top of them. Like that's another level of complicated that I hadn't even considered.
Absolutely, but looking at that, looking at starting a family, so I can't just roll into a baby bunting and buy any COT. I'm going to need a modified COT, modified car seats, all the things. I can now say it proudly that I am one of the lucky ones who I don't require access to a lot of the modified things. But I'm just one out of four point four million in our country, you know, And there's just not enough funds out there for us, and that's the problem.
It blows my mind. Earlier you mentioned that you'd actually gone over to the US for some rehab because that type of rehab wasn't available in Australia, and I feel like that's a relatively let's call it, like an experiment into therapy in comparison, what's the cost of that, Like, how much does that cost to go to the US? Because I already know from a base level that the American healthcare system is not very good and is very expensive. But then also doing that internationally to me is wild.
So can you tell me a bit more about that experience and what and why and when and how.
It's funny because I asked Shazza last night. I was like, Mum, I need some digits because I was heavily medicated when all this went on. I I just remember attending the fundraisers and that's the thing, Like we had to fundraise for everything, so absolutely everything down to the Komo chair
that Mum would throw around the backyard. But I think their first trip, so we went to an exercise physiology based recovery center, but we also needed to have accessible accommodations, so we were raising in excess of like sixty thousand dollars for a one month trip. I think the first time we actually went over to San Diego, we were only meant to be there for two weeks, but my physical recovery was so great that Mum actually rang my step down and said, put my car on the market.
We need to stay longer.
Oh my god, that is so yeah cool, But I mean the guilts I'm therapy that I've had to pay.
For since sure.
But you know, then when we got back to Australia, there was the whole reason we went over there is because we just didn't have access to it fourteen years ago.
Now we have the next step.
I was about to say, is this not really like motivated you to open your facility.
Like which again not for profit, had fundraise from the ground up to be able, and it's.
Told the next step right, so you can follow it on Instagram obviously, But I remember meeting you and then going and looking at that and being like, I literally have never seen anything like this in Australia as wild. I sent it to my mum to be like, look at this, how cool is this?
Like they still don't know how I did it, but it honestly it was just based off purpose and passion and a need. Like I said when we first met, everything I've done, I've done because I needed somebody to do these things or to tell me these things fourteen years ago. So when we came back from America, we actually went over there on three separate occasions. Each time we came back, we had to keep fundraising to go back, and we were asking our community to fundraise for one person.
And every time we'd go over to America, we'd meet more Aussies that were having to do the same thing, which again a bit of bullshit and the last time we went over there. So the third and final time we went over there, I ended up in the hospital over there incorrectly diagnosed with MS and put it on a prodessolone drips. So, oh my god. I came back to Australia and my doctor was like, you don't have MS. You've got a spartal cord injury and your body's exhausted.
But again we had travel insurance, but we had to prove that what was happening to my body it had happened and it wasn't, you know, because of my injury, which it kind of was. But it was just a bizarre experience being I've been in the healthcare system in Bali that's a whole story within itself, and then the hospital system in America. I can though exclaim that the best thing about being in the hospitals in America is the paramedics.
They are so good looking.
I was about to say, you're going to tell me they're real hot. Yeah, that's so good looking, all right. Australian paramedics are just not as there's definitely some hobbies out there, but I mean and like their paramedics are also like firemen as well. Okay, so I see where you go. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you want to set the hospital on fire.
So they all right, but not really but maybe yeah maybe it anyway cost we'll put it out if they're not that hot when they come, right, I feel like I.
Feel like people are going to come for me now. No, they're absolutely not. This is so money, Like, I feel like there's no such thing as an off brand. Like I feel like you're there's a positive in every negative and the positive words of paramedics in the Yeah, I'm glad we did so much fundraising and got the money's worth, all right, So I reckon, let's look at some of the other costs of common diseases in Australia.
Yeah, I agree, So I think when it comes to not being the most common, but one of the more
commonly talked about diseases in Australia is breast cancer. So breast cancer is the most common cancer among Australian women and there is a one in eight chance to develop it by the time you are eighty five years old, and seventy percent of breast cancer is detected in women between the ages of forty and sixty nine years and the average lifetime cost of breast cancer, which I'm going to argue because I like arguing basically everything, like it's
just who I am as a human being. But the average lifetime cost, according to the Zero Cost of Care Report, which means it is actually legitimate, is thirty six and forty dollars, which is a whole bunch of money just to get breast cancer. Obviously, if you are insured, a
lot of this is going to be covered. But having gone through life and known a number of women who have gone through this, again, it's really from my perspective, not about the direct cost, Like that's how much is going to cost for your medical treatment to come out the other side and hopefully be told you don't have any breast cancer in your body at all and you are all good to go home. That doesn't take into
consideration the therapy. That doesn't take into consideration the cost of income that you would experience while you know, going through treatment, the cost to your partner and your cares
and the people that surround you. What about the cost to your children, Like I remember growing up, one of my mum's best friends passed away from breast cancer, and she was like one of the best human beings in the entire world, Like it always happens to the good ones, right, and she had two young kids, and you know it was the biggest let's just call it a shit show in the entire world because she was married and then the will marriage complications obviously, because not all manner as
good as they should be when it comes to things like this. But then it just it really stretched out and you just go the cost to her in general. Wasn't just the six thousand dollars. She ended up losing her life from this, which is obviously massive. Two kids lost a parent, But then I guess stretching that out again, like what if she had survived. Two kids have this experience of growing up with a sick mum who wasn't as present and you know, does absolutely everything that they
possibly can. But it's just these costs can't, from my perspective, be quantified, Like and I feel like talking about this cost of care document so helpful. It is literally the first document that we have in Australia that tells us the lifetime costs of diseases and illnesses. But I just really don't think it quantifies it. And when you start putting things down on a white paper, You're like, yeah, like, that's what we could measure at the end of the day,
that's what we could measure. Melanoma is something that as a community we talk about a lot, and Australia has the second highest prevalence.
Of melanoma in the entire world.
The average lifetime cost for cancer sufferers aged over fifteen years can range from twenty thousand, three hundred and sixty dollars for having melanoma. But as we all know, it costs.
So much money to have body mapping done and a moult shake, right, and that's just not even having it, that's just checking if you might at risk. And like, I've just made an appointment to go and have mole mapping done and to have things checked, and it's going to cost me about five hundred dollars. Yes, I got one down a couple of years ago and I think it was like five hundred and sow dovent these things if we can't easily access them because of funds.
Exactly, it blows my mind, right. And then mental health is something that is so important to us but also is massive in our community. Almost half of the total population, so forty five point five percent of people experience a mental health condition at some point in their lifetime. Mental health conditions can include effective disorders, so things like depression, bipolar schizophrenia, anxiety disorders like panic attacks and stress disorders,
and substance abuse disorders so alcohol and drug dependencies. The cost for depression, on average is seventeen on one hundred and ninety dollars per individual. Well, just doesn't seem high enough.
And some people have one or two of these things.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah, absolutely, Like it's not something that just exists in isolation. Most of the time, individuals will spend an average estimated cost of thirteen thousand and fifty dollars per year out of pocket for mental health conditions, with medications accounting for one third of that cost.
I feel like I spend more than that. I absolutely just on my mental health.
Like I definitely spend more than that, Like I've calculated it. I take an anti anxiety and a depression medication, and they equate to maybe, like I think fifty two or so, depending on the keevest. I go to dollars a month, and that's fine. I feel like I can deal with that cost. But that's a lot of money. But then on top of that, I take a whole heap of natural supplements to try and like, you know, boost my mood in general, because I just don't like the idea
of being medicated. I then also am diagnosed with ADHD I have.
Yeah, it's probably why we get on.
I know.
It's like we met in oe each other.
It's like, oh my god, you go a million miles an hour?
Two do you want to get coffee?
Cool? Cool?
Cool? Like next minute we're setting like double chin selfies to each other. I'm like, look at my ten on my neck. It's done. Nice. You just get me. Sorry.
But I feel like that the medication is actually not that expensive. I think the medication, yeah.
I was about diet, The medication real cheap.
It's about I think it's like seventeen dollars a month or something real good money win. But also for me to get that medication, I have to go to a GP. I have to have a mental health care plan. I then get referred through to a hiatrest because a psychologist is not good enough. They can't prescribe medications. You need to see a psychiatrist. I'm very fortunate that I got diagnosed at about the age. I think I was like seventeen or eighteen when I got diagnosed, so it was
before the rise of people really understanding it as much. Sure, there wasn't as much prevalence of it, so getting into a psychiatrist wasn't as much of an issue as it is today for most people. But my psychiatrists appointments are probably four hundred and fifty dollars per appointment, and a lot of that is out of pocket. So I think I'm like maybe two hundred and eighty dollars out of pocket for every appointment that I go to.
Wow, prior to that, because.
I was young and you know, it took a really long time to diagnose me. They could not work out what was wrong with me because I was a female, so obviously females historically, yeah, they don't get it. So I was seeing a pediatric neurologist before that, which was I think it was like five hundred and fifty dollars a session, and my parents were paying for that. All of that is wild, and that's just to be diagnosed.
And guess what, I don't even like taking the medication, so I take a whole heap of supplements to make sure that I can be the best version of me. And those supplements are so wildly expensive, like and obviously they're experimental and they're not going to work for everybody. And I'll talk about it on my Instagram at some point because you know, I'm taking a whole heap of stuff that I genuinely believe works, but I'm probably spending And I'm very privileged to be able to do this.
Three hundred and fifty or four hundred dollars a month on something Wow, yeah.
Easily easily, And that's after researching you know, what actually works, what helps. Like, so I'm on, like a supplement called tyrazine. I'm on, you know, I take lions Maine, which.
Is I just prescribed to my partner this morning. Describe for that.
To natural supplements, the mushroom. It's got none of the illicit.
Stuff magic one though, I do say it is magic for us.
Absolutely.
I think it's really important to talk about these things because the cost of money, right, and it's so expensive, and that's just my very privileged experience of the healthcare system and being able to afford it.
Like if you.
Are in a lower income household and you are diagnosed with ADHD, you might go, okay, cool, Well, the medications not expensive, but goddamn the process to get there is insane and prohibitive and expensive and time consuming, and it's just to me, it's absolutely life.
That's why a lot of people put it in the two heart basket.
That's why a lot of people walking roll and running around undiagnosed and just not having that easy access to the things they require for their quality of life.
Exactly, which leads into my next stat that says fewer than two in five, so thirty five percent of people with anxiety or depression sake treatment. And I would say that that really leans into accessibility. And while it's quote accessible, it's accessible if you have the money to excess it, right, excess excess whatever. And then individuals with mental health conditions lost an average of thirty eight working days per year.
That's a lot of days.
Given most employment contracts in Australia, if you have a thirty eight hour working week and you're full time employed, you get ten. So you're usually in a situation where you're probably taking twenty eight days of unpaid leave because your employer is not going to just fund your health condition and God for Beard, that's not their responsibility. But that's twenty eight days. Extrapolate that out. That's more than a month of unpaid leave you have to take because
of mental health. And I feel like we need to I always like to contextualize things, because you're saying thirty eight working days are moving on just doesn't hits an hour on the head, right, Like thirty eight working days, you don't even do that amount of days in a month. Like that's more than a month. It's closer to two months worth of work that you're missing out on each and every single year because of mental health and not
being able to access the right resources. And like we know, as people sitting at this table, who all have talked about their mental health openly and honestly, we know that that costs money. And we also know that with access to the right resources we can be okay. But not everyone has that privilege, no.
All that knowledge as well, because I mean a lot of these things, including disability, still remain quite in So you know, I know you've heard me say before, Victoria, but you just don't know what you don't know. And that's why these kind of communities, like she's on the money exist to provide the education that we need to have. If we can't have financial access, at least we have access to the knowledge one hundred percent, and the line's mate and the line's made one hundred percent.
Do you know what I'm going to do if someone could sponsor me. We're going to talk offline about this, honestly, because I have theories about the different types of lines Maine that you can buy and whether some are good and some are bad.
Like I have a lot of it. Generally the ones that are the most expensive, they're the good ones.
It's unfortunately, unfortunately, my last bottle of lines Main cost like one hundred and sixty dollars.
Straight from Byron Bay.
It was we were on the same all right, let's go to a really quick break Forrehanna and I are going to talk about lines Main, and when we come back, we are going to talk about the impact of insurance on your attitude, your quality of life, and how to move on from experiencing an injury or an illness. Don't go anywhere, guys.
Welcome back.
We are talking about the cost of care on She's on the money today, and we have a motivational speaker, wellness advocate and model Rihanna and Tracy with us, who has navigated life after a spinal injury made her a quadriplegic. All right, Rihanna, and this is the sexy part of the episode. It's where we get to talk about insurance. I want to know, from your perspective, how has your experience impacted your attitudes towards insurance.
Oh do you know what?
I You're like, I can't even be bothered.
Don't even think about it, yolo.
I don't get off on insurance like you do.
But the insurance is the reason why I'm here telling my story, isn't it? Because without insurance I would not be alive. I didn't have a mum who told me that you had to descale a kettle, but I definitely had my mother telling me to scale a kettle.
Oh my god, matchup?
Oh what's that even mean? You put the lemon and the bike up in the vinegar in your kettle to de scale your kettle? Oh no, I haven't done that.
Oh my god.
Okay, Well, calcium build up, our producer, Just so what calcium build up is? If I'm meant to know that that's a thing I'm going to buy another kettle.
Don't worry. Anyway, back to insurance, because it's sexy. It is sexy. I had a mum who instilled insurances. I had insurance for I mean, we hate the words, but credit card. I had a credit card, I had income protection, credit card protection, travel insurance, health insurance.
My dog has pet insurance. Like I have all the insurances.
But that is because yes, I had it is keep talking to me speaking her language.
I had a mum who instilled that.
Yes, but because of the fact that I know what life would have been like post having my injury and the effect that it would have had on my family if I didn't have those things, I now know how important it is. So again, this is something that it shouldn't be. You know, you don't know what you don't know. Let's all know this insurance is pivotal.
Yeah, when you say you had all the insurances, did you go and see a financial advisor or were these just like incidental insurances that you collected because you've got a credit card and it kind of came with bonus insurance Like you mentioned one of my favorite types of insurance, which is income protection.
How did that benefit you. Income protection benefit me because it actually paid the gap between my disability support pension and my wage for how long? Really good until I was able to work again. Oh very cool.
Yeah, that's awesome.
Do you know how often it is that I talk to somebody who has experienced an injury and they're like, oh, yeah, it was the worst I didn't have.
But in saying that protection saying that bearing in mind that if I continued to work every year, I may or may not have been entitled to a pay rise, My income protection remains the same no matter how old I was, hence why she works. But you know it was it was there to provide me with the means to an end. I love that. I couldn't love that more.
When it comes to income protection, though, I think a lot of people, oh my gosh, that's like a free ride, right, you get your income for the rest of your life.
You're right.
It doesn't increase, it doesn't go up in line with CPI, and it's actually in Australia it could be up to eighty percent, but more commonly it's only seventy five percent of your regular income. If you could prove it so your actual taxable income each and every single year on
top of that, that income protection is taxed. It's not an insurance payout that you don't have to pay tax on because it's actually seen as an income And a couple of weeks ago, I think last week, actually, Beck, you and I talked about tax and how it works. You literally pay tax on your income protection. So it's not nearly and I'm sure you can probably attest to this.
It's not nearly as sexy as you think it is, but it is literally a means to an end, to mean that you maybe don't have to sell as many things, or you don't have to move back in with your parents should the worst happen. What other insurances kind of propped you up during that time or did the fact that your injury happened overseas impact the fact that you could claim on any of them?
No, so, wow, she was nicely insured.
I was nicely insured.
I mean the travel insurance paid for the two and a half weeks that I was in the hospital in Bali. And let me tell you, the medical team in Bali absolutely milked that because I should have been brought home much another moment was but also by the time I was brought home. I was brought home on an emergency air that's so that was hundreds of thousands of dollars, So I mean, yes, it did have a great impact
in that. But then moving forward, I did have private health insurance, so I mean that put me in a private room as opposed to being in a communal room. But I had total permanent disability as well, which was a I mean, we've gone through some of the figures associated with having this injury, so that payout within itself paid for the incidentals that I needed in life, like the catheters, and you know, those little bits and pauses that people just aren't aware of exactly.
And I guess until having a deep conversation with someone who's experienced this, you don't know the semantics around their situation, because, as you said before, we could talk to five or even ten quadriplegics, and their circumstances are different. And I think, as somebody who's never experienced this, and you know, let's pretend I've never even met anybody who's a quadriplegic before, you might just assume that it's a blanket term. That
means that if you have quadriplegia. You're exactly the same as everybody else in that circumstance, and it just.
Couldn't be more wrong. And I think it's also just.
So interesting you going, all right, well, it cost me a dollars sixty five to p Like, to me, that's really messed up that that's the case. But it's also so insightful to go, Okay, this is why we need better funding, because that stuff adds up eighty six thousand dollars a year to do what I take for granted like that is from my perspective, wildly unfair, because that's actually even higher than the median income here in Australia.
The median person here in Australia owns sixty five thousand dollars a year, and just for you to do a wee and go to the bathroom in a very normal way for you is costing you way more than that.
Well, I'm open and honest in saying that my tpdpayout was one hundred grand and eighty six thousand was continent products.
Well.
Also, we already discussed earlier in the first half of the episode that the average cost of quadriplegia here in Australia is eleven million dollars, so that's a drop in the ocean. Like from my perspective, that's not nearly enough.
And often when we talk about it as somebody who literally would write insurance policies, right, Like my job as a financial advisor was to make sure that you had a wealth creation strategy and that we could you know, do budget and cash loo and put you in the best position that your superannuation was looking really sexy, but then also that your insurances were in place, because if anything ever happened, I would hate for your wealth creation strategy to fall off the bandwagon or you not to
be able to retire and have the life that you deserve. And the amount of times I would talk to people and they're like, oh, yeah, like a TBD pay it out of one hundred grand, that's more than enough, fe and often.
It's not enough.
Would have to sit down with clients and be like, well, actually, I don't think that's enough because we're not just talking about the cost of you know, the things that you need, but we're talking about changes to your home, lifestyle changes, loss of income. Yes, we would be able to claim on income protection, but there are lots of top ups that I don't think you understand. And then even just things like life insurance, you would explain to somebody, Okay, cool,
you know I've run the numbers. You're an adult male and you have two young kids and a wife. I think you need a three and a half million dollar life insurance policy vitrue.
I don't need that.
Like my house is only worth eight hundred grand. You'd be like, I don't think you understand how much your life is worth until your family are going through something really traumaus that.
We cannot put a price on our own lives, like we can't comprehend how much our life is worth exactly those works. It's wild, isn't it. So look at what we.
Can do to protect ourselves now, and different types of insurances, because you know I love talking about insurances.
I you do not. You're both looking at me like here comes the boring your heart.
But it's so important to understand this, and there are many, many different types of insurance. But when it comes to the financial advice landscape and personal insurance, there are four different types of personal insurance. So you have income protection, which from my perspective is my favorite type. Of insurance that's going to replace your income should something happen to you.
We have total and permanent disability, which is essentially, if you sustain an injury that totally im permanently disables you, that is a lot of some payment that gets paid out. There is an insurance called trauma insurance, so if you experience a traumatic event, that will pay out. It's actually very different to total and permanent disability, so trauma insurance pays out for things like cancers and melanoma. It pays out for genuine traumatic events, not just total and permanent disability.
And then we have life insurance, which I think most people would understand. Obviously, it seems relatively easy to claim on life insurance.
All you have to do is die.
However, there are also lots of different circumstances where you might be able to access that early. So as a financial advisor, my most important one would be income protection because at the end of the day, if you crash your car and you have car insurance, we can replace your car. But if we crash your car and you get injured, your car might be replaceable, but your income is not. So from my perspective, that's the most important type of insurance that we have, and so they're the
personal types of insurance. Then there's private health insurance, which I think we need to address here because when it comes to disability and experiencing things like this, you don't know what you need until you really need it, Andrehanna, and you're probably a really good advocate for weighing in here. Is private health insurance worth it?
I'm going to have an internal and external debate about that one is yeah, and then it's going to cost me more money.
Yeah.
Sorry. Look it's funny because there is the Victorian Spinal Service, which is the hospital that services the community of people with spinal cord Introduce, which is a public hospital, and I had private health insurance, and every time I go in, even for a day appointment, they asked me do I want to go in as a private or a public? And I always say I want to go in as public because I don't want to pay the fight. What
am I paying that five dollars? I only just I've always had extras because I love my teeth and I love my access to physios and things like that. But I've only just put hospital cover back on because I am planning a family. But to completely digress in the way of insurance. It's something I am going to throw in there, which I'm sure you probably wouldn't have even thought of. Is so pervotal for the disability community is
contents insurance. And that is because if anything happens to your home and your mobility aids or the things that you need to live your life in your home, they will be covered. Yeah, that's from wheelchair to shower chair.
Yeah, that is a stunning addition, I think because often people really gloss over content.
And you have to list them when you are getting your policies. You make sure that they're on there. I mean, yes, our jury and everything and our TVs are important, But I know many people who have had instances where I mean I used to go to the drive through coffee shop. I'd leave my house and I'd actually leave my chair in the driveway of my house and I'd just jump in my house. But I drive through coffee shop. That's elite. Yeah, but so I wouldn't have to like pull my chair apart,
I just like leave it get a coffee. And Mum would always say me, someone's going to pinch your chair one day, and I've actually had a friend whose wheelchair was stolen, so he went for a rosted on his back and parked up his chair and his chair was stolen. So I mean, have contents insurance so that your mobility aids and the things that you require are taken care of as well.
I could not agree with that on that absolute scum if you are stealing a whee, that is like the war level line. Oh, I just I can't adding to that. Another really important insurance that we touched on and the start of this episode is travel insurance, and we went on and on about that. I don't think we could be, you know, more in favor of ensuring that you have travel insurance, but I also would take it a step further.
And I know this, you know, again really privileged, But if you can't afford to pay for travel insurance, you probably can't afford to go on that holiday.
Preach, full stop, end of story.
If you're not adding that to your travel plans, Like I'm really sorry, but you shouldn't be going on the holiday in the first place. Like the risk from my perspective is just far too high to the point where you guys won't be surprised about this. I remember talking to a friend about her travel insurance. She was like, Nah, I'm not going to get it. I literally bought it for her. I was like, I'm so sorry, Like I bought you this as a little travel present. Like it's just not happening.
It's not me trying to be nice. It's me knowing the industry.
And I mean, I have a very I guess, cynical view of stuff like this because and I was saying this to you earlier, and I'm in this beautiful position where you get to work with people and wealth creation. You get to work with people to you know, set up their lives and you know, put them in a position that they never dreamed they'd ever be in. One of those things is ensuring that they appropriately insure it.
And some of the times your clients come back to you with really significant injuries or illnesses, or sometimes your clients don't come back and their partners do, and it's heartbreaking. It is the worst thing in the world to go through. But one of the things when I was a financial advisor was knowing that I was the right person to help them through that process. I would bend over backwards to make sure that we got that claim in and that claim was paid out asap to make sure that
that family was in the best possible position. But having exposure to things like that really twists and warps your view of what happens in the world. And the amount of people that go, oh, that won't happen to me, I go, will it?
Can?
It does?
Like I have had clients call and say, hey, I'm really sorry. My husband literally got hit by a bus on the way to work. He's going to be okay, but he's in a coma. I have had, you know, situations like yours, Rihanna, and where a freak accident happened while someone was living their best life and they need to be medivacked back to Australia. And even just knowing how to go through that process. I don't think it's
a privilege. I think it's you know, really sad that I know that process because it means that I know people who have gone through these circumstances. But that is
why I am so wildly passionate about insurance. And when I jump up and down say it's my favorite, it's not me being fluffy, it's me going this is the difference between you having to live or minimum wage and never creating the life that you deserve and you being able to create the life you deserve and live with a disability, because that's entirely possible, right and Rihanna and you are literally one of the best advocates of this, like you just embrace life and.
Figure if it flag, get travel insurance or die in my case, and that was and that's the fact, like, yes, I won't sugarcoated. Had I have not had travel insurance, I would not be here. And I say that all the time. You know, my audience when I first started speaking were year twelve students who are about to go on school is And I was like, it reminds me of that episode of Mean Girls, of the episode that Mean Girls We're going to take just like if you
have sex, you will die. You will get pregnant and you you will and you will die. You know, I would say, you know, not in those words, but I'd be like, exactly what you do go on a holiday and you don't have travel insurance, you will die. You will die or get some kind of weird infection or something's going to happen, you know, like it's not going to be a good outcome either way, you know, and I look forward to the day where we're actually not allowed to travel unless we do have that insurance.
I think it should be the rules like they're the she's on the money rules, Like you're going against the she's on the money values if you're traveling without travel insurance.
I just think it's so important.
And I mean, if you don't want to hear that, I think you shouldn't be going on a holiday if you can't afford it. Like I kind of don't care because it's put you in the best possible position. But I guess that leads into we only have time for one more question, and I want to ask you. It's more of a personal question around and it's around your mindset. Like the second I met you, and I know this
sounds really fluffy, but we really connected. I was like, far out, this is the type of person that I would want to surround me, Like your mindset is beautiful.
You are such a vibe.
How are you such a vibe after going through fourteen years of things that you know, a lot of people end up really disheartened with a lot of people end up really salty about a lot of people end up with a really negative mindset about And I mean, we've all come across an angry person in a wheelchair, right, Which.
Would be fair enough, because which is like the way of the world shoulders. Yeah, it's so fair.
But how are you just like this shining light of positivity and this type of person that attracts everybody.
Well, I think it's because I have perspective. I mean, for me, it was no matter what happened to me, there was always somebody out there that was worse off.
And that was in actual fact, like I would have days where Mum would push me into the kitchen of the hospital and I would see people with acquired brain injuries and people who are completely nonverbal and I'd be blowing my eyes at because I was twenty years old and my life was so shit at that point, and Mum would say to me, at least you can make your own decisions, at least you can communicate your needs.
And I always go back to that moment when I'm feeling really shit from a perspective of somebody living with a disability. Again, still same kind of thing. You know, I have created a life based on, yes, the need, but also.
The want of life.
You know, I was twenty, and I think that that's probably a good time. I mean, nobody wants to be injured, and I don't want to wish that upon anyone.
But you know, I had a choice.
I could give up all the goals and ambitions that I had, or I could work towards them. I also do say that the fact that I didn't have and this is so bizarre to me, the fact that I didn't have easy access to the things I needed made me work harder. So, you know, like because I didn't have funding and because I could see the toll that this was taking on my family, like I moved out.
I've always been the.
Girl who, like I couldn't wait to turn fourteen in nine months so I could work at mackets, you know what I mean. I've always been that person who wanted to be able to take care of myself. So when that couldn't happen, I just worked that bit harder and it wasn't easy. But also, you know, I now get to go and you know, literally roll into a place where I watch people every single day take back control
of their lives. And that is my facility, and that gives me a reason to just keep going and conversations like this, like, you know, insurance gets you horny victoria, but disability allies horny people, you know, Like I love that we can have these conversations because now the conversation is not going to end here.
No, and it shouldn't end here unfortunately, is going to end your right episode by but also before we go, actually.
Another little plug.
I have had a few people sliding into my DMS on Instagram asking Victoria, where can we get our life insurance? And our personal insurance is sorted and our recommendation is a company called sky Wealth. And the reason I recommend sky Wealth is one it's run by one of my good friends, Phil Thompson, who actually took on a lot of my clients when I left the industry, so you know, I trust him. It's legit. But he essentially is an
insurance specialist. He doesn't do wealth, he doesn't do superanuation. He just does insurance, which means he's going to be a little bit cheaper because financial advice can be prohibitive, but I promise you this is not.
And he does like.
A fifteen minute free call at the start, so if you want to contact them, no, I feel like it's just really important. I know that sounds like a shameless plug, and he definitely doesn't pay me to say this lack. He would probably be mortified that I'm talking about him so publicly, but I'll pop all of his information in
our show notes. And then also, if you want to get matched with any other type of financial advice or mortgage broking professional, there's actually a part on our sh is on the Money website where you can get mashed with a mortgage broker or a financial advisor that she's on the Money community knows and loves.
So you can also go and check that out.
But for people who have really resonated with you and your cause and what you do, where can we learn more about you and more about your facility which is friggin.
Incredible shameful plug?
It is not shameful. I literally asked for it. I literally asked you to plug yourself here.
Okay, yeah, plug away, But we don't have enough time. Someone, we do it quick, quick. Rihanna Tracy my will life, because my will Life.
I love that. That's her Instagram handle? And what is your facility? How can we support that?
So?
My facility is a not for profit organization. It is the only type in Australia. Amazing. It is called the Next Step Spinal Cord Injury Recovery and Wellness Center, and that is because it literally is the next step. We don't just treat people with spinal cord injuries, we don't just treat people with disabilities. We now treat anybody who really wants to take the next step in their life. Adore, I love that.
It's so nice to hear your story and hear your perspective. You've really definitely change my view on a lot of things. So thank you for joining us.
It won't be the last time. We will see you on Friday, guys, See you guys. Bye.
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