What happens when you have a car or motorcycle loan, and something unexpected happens that means you can’t make your repayments?

Whether it’s experiencing illness or injury, or becoming unemployed, the last thing you want to worry about is paying off your car.

That’s why eric Insurance offers Financial Protection Insurance. There’s nothing more important than your wellbeing, and our policy is designed to cover monthly loan repayments if you become sick, injured, or lose your job.

To help demonstrate how financial protection insurance might help you if the unexpected occurs, check out the following stories inspired by eric clients.

You can find out more about Financial Protection Insurance here.

Redundancy threw a curveball at Ramon’s career

Ramon was climbing the corporate ladder, working at a slick media agency in the city, with a portfolio of high-profile brands. He thought the year would bring him a promotion and had already spent the extra bucks that would be coming in on upgrading his car to a shiny new Mercedes-Benz S65.

Only, instead of a raise, Ramon got a redundancy. His clients were going through a difficult time, and his agency had decided to downsize.

Ramon still had $136,422 to pay off his vehicle. The industry was looking tough, and while he wasn’t too worried about being out of work, he didn’t want the worry of paying off his car on top of job hunting.

When Ramon bought his car, he knew he was entering into a sizeable payment plan and he wanted to cover all his bases. He’d taken out Financial Protection Insurance with eric just in case something went wrong.

It’s no secret that Ramon didn’t want to give his car back. Luckily, his insurance with eric allowed him to claim the payment assistance benefit. This gave him the option of having 6 of his monthly repayment covered while he looked for another job.

He was happy to get rid of the added financial stress of paying off his car until he found a new job.

Frances stops work after a cancer diagnosis

When Frances was diagnosed with breast cancer, she felt like her world was falling apart. She’d always been healthy, so it came as a shock to realise she was looking ahead at months of chemotherapy and recovery time.

She arranged a prolonged leave of absence from her work as a property manager at a busy real estate agency. Frances thought she’d like to return to work at some point, but there was a high chance she wouldn’t be able to work for a long time, if at all.

When her monthly car repayment rolled around, Frances realised she only uses her car on occasions to get to work so wasn’t sure if she had any real need for her car anymore. With $29,107.98 left to pay on her loan, and not knowing when she’d be able to work again, the monthly repayments were an added financial burden for her.

Luckily, her daughter had earlier encouraged her to take out Financial Protection Insurance. Frances was relieved as eric Insurance was able to cover 6 of her monthly repayments while she was out of work. Unfortunately, Frances was still unable to work after these 6 months. As a result of this, Frances realised she no longer needs to use her car so she decided to use the Handback option on her Financial Protection policy and hand her car back to the dealer.

The dealership offered Frances $18,000 to purchase her car leaving $11,107.98 owing on her loan. eric Insurance paid the maximum benefit of $10,000 to her financier, leaving Frances out of pocket $1,107.98.

Will is diagnosed with epilepsy after experiencing a seizure

Will was driving one day when he suddenly had a seizure. Sustaining a large head injury, he was recovering in hospital when he was diagnosed with epilepsy.

Will had a long road to recovery with a permanent disability. His car was covered by Financial Protection Insurance, and Will was given the option of 6 months of paid benefits, and/or to hand back his Land Rover Discovery.

Wanting to focus on recovery, Will decided to hand back the car. He wasn’t going to be driving for a long time and his recovery window would extend beyond 6 months.

A dealer offered to purchase his Land Rover for $45,000, and the amount of finance still owing was $72,097. eric Insurance paid $26,518 to Will’s financier, leaving Will with $579 to clear off his loan.

Will was able to focus on his health and not have to deal with a car he wasn’t able to use. With Financial Protection Insurance and the help of eric, he got everything sorted quickly and easily.

Expect the unexpected

The last thing you want to have to think about is loan repayments when you lose your job or have to take time off work.

With Financial Protection Insurance, you can rest easy knowing that your payments are taken care of in the event of illness or injury, unemployment as a result of redundancy, retrenchment, or your employer ceasing to operate.

Our insurance covers:

• Disability, sickness, and accident – as certified by a Medical Practitioner, except whereas a result of deliberate self-harm
• Involuntary unemployment – if you become unemployed as a result of being made redundant, retrenched, or your employer ceasing to operate
• Self Employed – if your business becomes insolvent
• Complications due to pregnancy – if you experience complications as a result of your pregnancy and are unable to return to work after your maternity leave

Then you may choose to:

• Receive a Payment Assist Benefit – which can be used to cover up to a maximum of 6 monthly repayments during the Period of Insurance, subject to your ongoing sickness, injury, illness, or unemployment

AND/OR

• Handback your Vehicle to a Dealer – and you experience a shortfall as a result of the handback, we will pay the shortfall to your Financier.

A 21-day excess period applies to all claims lodged under Financial Protection Insurance.

Read the Product Disclosure Statement on our website for more information on coverage limits and excess periods.

You can’t plan for everything in life, but you can have peace of mind that if something does go wrong, you’re financially covered.

Visit this page for more information about Financial Protection Insurance or give us a call on 1800 999 977.

Disclaimer: We wanted to highlight some real-life claims stories. But even though these stories are all based on eric’s real customers, we’ve added some extra flavour for a bit of fun. Safe driving or riding folks!