Assumptions without a source
Year-to-year swings in income
A salary moves only with wage growth across the economy. Every other income is its recorded amount each year.
What it affects: An income that swings from year to year - a bonus, commission or a business's profit - draws a narrower range than its swings would give.
Cost of care after a permanent disability
A total and permanent disability pays any cover held. It adds no ongoing cost of care.
What it affects: In a future with a permanent disability, spending leaves out the cost of care, so the low end of the range sits too high.
Medical costs of a serious illness
A trauma event pays any cover held. It adds no medical cost.
What it affects: In a future with a serious illness, the range leaves out its out-of-pocket medical costs.
Kinds of property
Property is one asset class. Residential, commercial and listed property share one return and one volatility.
What it affects: A household holding mostly one kind of property draws the same range as one holding another kind.
Partners' incomes falling together
Each member's income shocks are drawn on their own. One partner losing work makes the other no more likely to.
What it affects: For a couple whose incomes tend to fall in the same year, the low end of the range sits too high.
Temporary disability
No future draws a temporary disability. Income protection pays only on a disability a plan or scenario dates.
What it affects: Income protection adds nothing to the range unless a disability is dated. The range shows neither a disability's cost nor the cover's worth against it.
Lifespans lengthening
Death is drawn from today's Australian life tables, with no allowance for lifespans lengthening.
What it affects: For anyone decades from old age, lives run shorter than they are likely to. Money lasting to the end of life is then overstated.
Term deposits
A term deposit is cash that can be drawn at any time. A cash account carries no maturity date.
What it affects: Money locked in a term deposit counts as available in a year it could not be drawn.
The Medicare levy surcharge
No Medicare levy surcharge is charged, with or without private hospital cover.
What it affects: A household earning above the surcharge threshold without hospital cover pays less tax in the range than it would.
Health and smoking
Every member is drawn from population rates of illness and death. A recorded health status or smoking does not change them.
What it affects: For a smoker or someone in poor health, illness, death and claims follow the population's average.
Pay swings by occupation
Every occupation's salary carries the economy's wage variation. None swings more or less for its occupation.
What it affects: A salary in an occupation whose pay swings widely draws too narrow a range. A steady one draws too wide a range.
Hazardous occupations
A hazardous occupation is charged the heavy-manual premium and job-loss rate, the lowest it could be.
What it affects: Premiums and job loss for hazardous work are understated. The Position does not offer this class, so no household reaches it from the form.
Trauma cover by occupation
Trauma cover costs the same in every occupation class.
What it affects: The cost of trauma cover in the range, for every occupation class: real premiums differ by occupation.
How the engine works
Australian and global bonds
Australian and global bonds share one sampled return.
What it affects: A portfolio split between Australian and global bonds gets no diversification between them, so its range is wider than the split would give.
A company's cash and the household's
A private company's cash can pay the household's costs as if it were the household's own.
What it affects: For a household with a private company, the range overstates what the household can spend. In a year a loan from the company is not repaid, the deemed dividend and its tax are understated.
This release
One planned viewpoint per account
One price covers one planned viewpoint: one person, or a group that shares goals, such as a couple. A partner inside the paid couple is covered.
What it affects: What one subscription buys. Planning a second viewpoint, such as one partner alone or a company, is outside this release.