Prior to becoming a Registered Financial Adviser, Sonia and I owned our own business. We decided like many new business owners that it was time to invest in our own future and work for ourselves.

We bought an Enzed Hose Doctor franchise run, the primary role required the repair hydraulic hoses on earthmoving machinery and other plant, whilst Sonia managed the accounting side of the business. After three years of building the business from the ground up, the business was now returning a enough profit to now pay both Sonia and myself an income. At the time it made sence to split the income earned, as this would offset our individual tax liability.

Income splitting is quite common in small businesses and most accountants would recommend this, however there are consequences as we would soon find out!

The day it all changed ……..

Whilst I was carrying out star-jumps to warm up prior my routine gym workout my foot slipped, causing me to jar my lower back, herniating a disc. This left me incapacitated and unable to work as the pain was unbearable.

As I was eager to return to work as soon as possible, Sonia immediately contacted ACC to begin the claims process.

Heres how the next two years panned out …….

• MRI scans indicated that surgery was required to cut away the damaged herniated disc, thankfully this was covered by ACC as it was considered to be an acute injury and not degenerative.
• 9 – 10 weeks after the accident I had the discectomy operation.
• During this time we had also submitted an Income Protection claim with our private insurer AIA.
• As we had not changed over to CoverPlus Extra we were not able to claim immediately through ACC as the default scheme “Cover Plus” required us to prove a loss of earnings before any loss of earnings benefit would be paid. This took time as Sonia was now required to complete our accounts for the previous 12 months, submit them to our accountant for final sign off and then work with ACC to determine the amount of lost earnings benefit to be paid.
• Now here’s the catch……. as we had decided to split our income for tax purposes, we were now only paid 80% of the income apportioned to me which severely reduced benefit we thought we would receive.
• Thankfully the private income protection benefit paid in addition to ACC and this was not offset by their benefit payments.
• Approximately 9 months after the accident ACC decided that I was fit to return back to work, in a role for which I had previous experience, one of the jobs recommended was a caravan salesman …… this still makes me laugh.
• So now faced with ACC stopping the benefit payments I was left with a few options

1. Try and get a job immediately which required very little physical work, as my back was still not 100%
2. Apply for the Sickness Benefit (pays approx $160 / week) or register for the unemployment benefit
3. Or remain on claim with AIA and have occupational retraining.

My brother Kevin suggested that I could join his company Perreau & Associates, re-training as a financial adviser.

The rest is history!

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