Last year a UK nurse was injured soon after arriving and used up the 12 days sick leave and annual leave they had accrued. At the time we started to recommend all nurses explore income protection as this is one time you dont want to be without a cash flow.
However, those in the public sector (not sure how it works in the private sector) have contributions payed by their employed to SuperSA (pension). This provides a certain amount of free life insurance and diasbility cover, with the option to purchase more. It also provides 'free' income protection, to the value of 2/3 of the nurses annual salary, provided you make additional pre tax (via salary sacrifice) or post tax pension contributions to the scheme.
I loked into purchasing income protection and life insurance for us privately and its very expensive - about $150 per month. Since there are tax advantages to making additional pension contributions anyway (I wont recommend which one you do) this is worth bearing in mind.
Anyone interested in exploring this further needs to look at it carefully of course, im not an insurance or pensions expert, but the super sa website is www.supersa.sa.gov.au

Cathy
xxx

Hi Cathy,

I have heard the term salary sacrifice used before, but don't know what it means? Where you explain it a bit or tell me where I can find out about it? Thanks

Hi Cathy,

Im not sure what you are talking about, but I am currently employed as an RN2, and paying super sa. I have also taken out a separate sickness benefit plan which includes life assurance, this costs only $70.00 per month. Is there something that I am missing, just wondered?

Debs

Hi Griffiin and Debs

Salary Sacrifice is a tax incentive. Its available to workers in some industries which are in demand in order to help attract staff to come and work in them.
There are 2 companies that do it, McMillan Shakespeare and Remunerator. Here is Remunerators website - www.remunerator.com.au
Salary sacrifice allows you to elect certain things (to a value of about 7k per year), such as rent, mortgage, utilities which you can pay BEFORE you pay tax on your salary. This means you avoid paying tax on that part of your income.
To use myself as an example, I pay my rent this way. My rent is $620 per fortnight. Each pay day, $345 is taken from my salary before I pay tax and sent to remunerator. I am then taxed on the remainder of my income. Remunerator then return $345 to my account - saving me about $100 in tax.
It costs about $200 to set up (from memory) and there is a yearly fee to cover admin charges. Its worth looking into but as with all things tax related its better to get proper advice.


Debs, it sounds like you have found a really good package and it might not be worth your while taking any additional cover through Supersa. I make additional payments to my super sa because by doing this I attract an extra payment from the government. If you were to make these additional payments too - by salary sacrifice or as additional payments after tax, then the supersa scheme provides you with free income protection for 18 months to the value of 2/3 of your salary. The supersa scheme also provides you with one free 'unit' of life insurance and disability cover. This is worth about $50,000. You can purchase extra units if you wish. Life insurance is expensive for us as Pete smokes. There are proper details on the SuperSa website.

Hope this helps

Cathy
xxx

Hi cathy, maybe it would be worth getting the hospital to organise someone to come and explain it all to us, not all overseas nurses visit adbrits and it would be a shame for them to miss out. I have had no information (not that I recall easily) with regards to what my sa includes so it would be nice to be better informed. Perhaps it could be put on the overseas meet agenda. thanks for posting. Lesley

Hi Lesley,

They should have included some info about this in your orientation days, it was the chap from the payroll place who mentioned it to us, but I will speak to Karen about it. Karen and I are writing a guide for the next recruits aswell, warning them of the more common pitfalls and suggesting some helpful websites etc. i will include it in that.
McMillan Shakespeare visit the hospital every week I think (might be fortnightly) and your CNM will get an email with the next date on ( I know this for a fact because I get one!), ask her / him when it is (I cant remember). Failing that Bryn, from Remunerator, is doing a session on South 2 at 14.30 on Monday 6th february, youre welcome to come along. I will suggest it to Karen too for the OS nurses meeting, good idea. If you want Bryn to do some sessions in your area, his email addy is nicolls@remunerator.com.au. I think they suggest the average saving is $2600 per year!

Cathy
xxxx

Thanks Cathy,

You've reminded me of one of the things I've still not got round to sorting!!!

Lisa