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I'm Garth. I work at 1.618 Sea Point. I've been in the business for 30 years. If I could choose one product out of all that Discovery sells, it would be Dread Disease Cover. I just feel that this is the product that clients touch the most. For example, with Life Cover, you can only die once. With Dread Disease cover, things come back, and you often have multiple claims. I can't stress the importance of this cover enough.

I come across a lot of clients who go in on the cheap, and then they claim at 40 and we pay out the Dread Disease cover and at 50 they are uninsurable.

I find in our business, nowadays people are trying to find the cheapest premium and that's not necessarily always the best, especially when it comes to Dread Disease Cover. Because there are so many ranges in premium and clients don’t know the difference. For example, cover for R1m could be R1000pm, R2000pm or something different. I tell all my clients, you can’t call us on the way back from your Oncologist. Then it’s too late. In my experience I have seen a lot of very sad stories regarding Dread Disease. For example, where a family sells off assets in order to keep their loved ones alive – and then they don’t make it.

I see my job as protecting people financially and giving the right advice – but it’s a hard conversation to have. I can give honesty or diplomacy. What do you want to hear? Please don’t confuse aggression with passion – I just want the best for my clients. I often find (especially with ladies) they’ll spend R7000 on beauty treatments but won’t spend R3000 on Dread Disease cover – when 1 in 3 ladies are getting cancer. I understand that people spend according to their values. But this is not ‘Mickey Mouse’, it’s life changing advice.

If the Dread Disease stats were 1 in 50000 and it cost R9000 pm, then yes – take a chance. But it’s not. It’s 1 in 3 and it’s based on your affordability. You can spend as little as R1000 per month for your cover. And: when you have it and you claim and claim again and again - and the cover has still got you – that is where the magic happens!

In today’s society, we typically have 2 income families. So, if one parent gets sick or dies, the children have often lost both parents – because one parent needs to go back to work and is around less – it’s hard stuff. So, I think it’s equally important that both parents are properly insured. Dad AND Mom.

What I do, is show clients entry level benefits and premiums – tell them what is good and not good enough and I’ll often go through with them over a period of time what is cheap and nasty and then what Discovery is offering on that.

I had a client who was getting divorced. It was a long story but due to financial strains she wanted to reduce her cover. My response was “No, you need to double up because there is actually only one parent now providing”. Things got busy and she asked again to reduce it. I explained that an email was not enough to explain the importance of this to her and I wanted to sit with her and discuss the importance of it and NOT reducing. We never got to meet and I took a chance and didn’t reduce it as time ticked over. 3 weeks later she called me on the way to her lawyer to sign her divorce papers. She had just gotten a call from the Oncologist to say she had stage 3 breast cancer.

If I was any different broker, I would have just submitted and reduced the cover. But instead with the large amount we paid her out, she was able to pay for her divorce and provide for her and her kids, keep her business going for years to come - without worry. All because of this “STUFF”.

I explained there’s a 70% chance of it coming back again. And when it comes around again – the cover is still in place to pay out AGAIN! It's those kinds of stories that make this worth it.

Many new guys in the business want to be the ‘nice guy’ this is not what it’s about. The advice I would give to new guys coming in to this business is this is not a popularity contest. There are hard conversations to have, but when you get it right it’s life changing.

Garth Mulholland - 1.618 Financial Advisor