The former life insurance company Tower Australia Group Limited, known more commonly as TOWER Australia, is now to be known as TAL Limited or TAL. The name change is the result of TOWER Limited (NZ) and TOWER Australia de-merging in 2006. An agreement of the split was that TOWER Australia could continue using the TOWER name only until November of 2011. Other than the name change everything else about the company remains the same including the tower income protection policies now known as TAL Income Protection Standard Insurance. It is an ideal policy for anyone who relies on their income each pay day to ensure they can meet all their living day to day costs.

The TAL Income Protection Standard Insurance policy includes the following built in benefits:

• Death. If the insured person was to die a lump sum payment equal to the benefit amount multiplied by six up to a maximum of $50,000 will be paid.
• Total disability. On a successful claim, an amount equal to 75 percent of the insured’s normal monthly income will be paid each month, in arrears, from the finish of the chosen waiting period onwards.
• Part disability. If the insured person can only work in a reduced fashion as a result of an injury or illness, the benefit will take into account the insured’s earnings prior to the disability and any earning during the month prior to the claim being made.
• Inflation protection. The tower income protection now known as the TAL income protection standard insurance policy will be automatically adjusted annually to take in any inflationary trends. This will be based on the Consumer Price Index or nothing less than three percent. These adjustments can affect your premium costs therefore you will have an option to delete this benefit if you wish.
• Concurrent disability. Where you suffer from a concurrent disability in addition to a current injury or illness your payments will reflect the disability that attracts the highest payment. This means you will always be paid the maximum payment.
• Recurrent. In the event that an illness or sickness returns within 12 months of the previous claim being terminated TAL, or tower income protection, as it was known previously, will regard it as being part of the original claim. This means there will be no waiting period to be considered and payments will begin immediately.
• Premium waiver. If you are receiving benefit payments because of a total or partial disability claim all income protection premiums will be waived during that time.
• Family support. TAL, or as was previously tower income protection, will pay a monthly amount of up to $3,000 for up to three months, if a member of the immediate family has to cease paid work to care for you, if you are the insured person. To become eligible for this benefit you must have been totally disabled for at least 30 days.
• Housekeeper. If you are totally reliant on a person to care for you, who is not a family member, while you are totally disabled, TAL income protection will make a monthly payment of up to $3,000 to that person. You must however have been totally disabled for 30 days and be confined to bed at your home to be eligible for this benefit to be paid.
• Confinement to your bed. During your TAL income protection waiting period you can be eligible for a proportion of your benefit to be paid if you are confined to bed by a doctor. You must be confined to your bed for at least three consecutive days.
• Extended care. TALwill keep paying your income protection insurance after the plan is meant to cease, if you have held the policy for more than ten years at standard rates and you haven’t lodged a claim against the policy during the previous 13 months.
• Certain event injury. Depending on the type of injury involved, TAL income protection standard will make payments for a specific period for scheduled events.
• Elective surgery. TAL will consider you to be totally disabled due to illness if the disablement was caused by a transplant operation, cosmetic surgery, or elective surgery undertaken on the advice of your doctor.

The TAL Income Protection Premier Insurance has further built-in benefits these include

• A child care benefit to cover caring for your children under 12 years of age
• Child critical illness benefit that will pay a lump sum amount of three times the benefit to a maximum of $20,000
• Rehabilitation benefit of half the full benefit amount
• Reimbursement of the cost of a rehabilitation program to a maximum of six times the full benefit amount
• Overseas assistance, this benefit will pay the cost of emergency transportation to Australia from anywhere in the world if you suffer total disability that lasts for a minimum of 30 days
• Accommodation cost reimbursement of up to $250 a day for up to 30 days if you become totally disabled and have to travel over 100km for professional treatment
• Job security means that TAL will be willing to pay, under certain circumstance, one month of your benefit to your employer, if you become totally disabled for two months and ultimately return to work with the same employer
• Redundancy cover means TAL will waive your premiums including that of any optional benefits you may have incurred, if you remain unemployed through no fault of your own and not due to injury or illness, for up to three months from the date of you first becoming unemployed.

Other built in benefits for the TAL income protection premium cover include return to work, premium pause, continuous benefit, guaranteed insurability and a shortening of the waiting period. There are also other benefits that you can have attached to your policy at additional cost if you wish to take them up.