Cath.C

Any insurance companies insuring for losses due to terrorism if your goods were on a shipment that didn't detour and got targeted?

On 28/12/2022 at 08:46, Ken said:

If you consider the movers insurance to be inadequate you can take out your own relocation insurance.

We are stuck with the companies contracted by the new employer.  Insurance is adequate, I just think it's funny that the moving company provided us with these crappy overly large moving boxes, which (probably coincidentally), reduces the exposure of the insuring company to losses.  

41 minutes ago, Nemesis said:

Can you only use their boxes?

Well, the relocation package is paid for, and that includes all their supplies, so I could buy and use my own, but they are supposed to be supplying all our moving supplies.  

I'm doing a PBO move (for various good reasons).  Didn't get to pick the removals or the shipping company.  We are being charged by volume, and there is a £275 limit per box for loss or damage (if the box itself is damaged, no contents cover if the box stays intact).  They delivered boxes, and they are huge, lots of large boxes, and the smallest boxes they delivered are what I would consider medium boxes.  I either have to pack them half full of air, via foam or bubble wrap (thus paying for shipping of said air, by volume), or if it doesn't make the boxes too heavy, fill them with more than £440 worth of contents, thus limiting their liability.  

I know this is probably just laziness, or getting rid of their excess large boxes at the end of the year, but it does seem to work out financially for them, and annoying for me. 

On 24/12/2022 at 21:46, Marisawright said:

The problem for the OP is that they'll be arriving in Australia having already had cancer. I'm sure you know that a private insurer won't cover pre-existing conditions for the first 12 months after arrival.

It sounds like she is in it for the long haul though.  I don't know how old she is, but kids still in school, sounds like she is not terribly old, and a year investment waiting out the waiting period might be worth it.
Assuming she has a status that will allow her to return, with her existing diagnosis. 

https://bmccancer.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12885-021-08756-x

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7967550/

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-15/financial-cost-of-cancer-leaves-patients-in-poverty/11374356

What I am curious about, is if you can utilize private cover for diagnostic steps, and then go to the public system for treatment.  Apparently the public system is better about getting people with obvious acute  issues treatment, than about preventative and diagnostic services.  

18 hours ago, Alexia said:

 What out of pocket expenses might I expect, such as payment for prescriptions and scans.

 

I've heard that some areas have very long weights for things like colonoscopies, even if you are having mild symptoms consistent with a bowel disease, so a lot of people do utilize private health.  Trying to figure out the typical out of pocket costs for someone not relying on the public system seems impossible, but I've read newspapers article with rather high out of pocket expenses.  

I see some comments just 'Guest', how does one comment anonymously as guest?

On 18/09/2022 at 01:11, rammygirl said:

Buy one way travel insurance, sometimes called migration insurance, this will cover possessions as well as health. Normal travel insurance won’t work as you need to return for it to be valid.

 

Any recommendations?  My searching is failing me, I find travel insurance, and computer system migration services, but not what i need.  

On 18/09/2022 at 00:09, Marisawright said:

Congratulations.

I don't know of any such thing as migration gap insurance. You buy Overseas Visitor Insurance.

https://www.bupa.com.au/health-insurance/cover/overseas-visitors

Thanks.

Not worried about insurance cover IN Australia, pretty sure that Medicare coverage begins when we arrive, even if we don't have the paperwork yet.  I'm trying to figure out how to cover a transitional period of up to two weeks.

So, we've gotten our PR visas, amazing given some health issue concerns that turned out to be either ignored by the panel doctor, or ignored by the migration officer reviewing our file.  Or maybe Australia just really needs people right now.

We arranged it so that there is no employment gap, new job in Australia will officially start the day after we official separate from our jobs in Europe, although it will be a couple of weeks between employment separation and arriving in Australia (starting work can be done remotely for one of us).  Health insurance is  subsidized through work.  We can maybe buy a month of private insurance cover on our own, but that might not be possible, and looking for alternatives.  As far as I can see though, we cannot sign up for Medicare until we arrive on the ground.  (reciprocal  agreements with UK don't apply).  Are there any less well known ways to get Medicare started before arriving, or will we need temporary or travel insurance for that approximately 2 week period?  Any recommendations for a good migration gap insurance (knowing that it won't cover preexisting conditions)?
thanks.

On 09/08/2022 at 23:36, Ausvisitor said:

 

So whilst you can never tell the best time to exchange pounds for dollars, this is almost certainly not it - for the last 5 years this is about as low as it has been 

Sorry, just read your further post.  Do you think that European energy prices and the Ukraine was won't continue to drive down the pound (along with the Euro)?

Reiwa.com.au is blocked for me on all the computers I try, is it blocked overseas for everyone?  Is there anyway to access it outside of Australia without a VPN with an Australian IP address?

I'm going through a couple of preliminary shipping quotes.  For reasons, I want to do PBO (packed by owner), for everything but the furniture.  Reading through one insurance policy, they don't cover theft or loss of PBO boxes.  I understand why it's standard for PBO scenarios to not cover breakage, only total loss, but why not cover theft or loss of PBO boxes if they are inventoried and line item insured?

Has anyone used 3rd party insurance policies that would cover theft or loss of individual PBO boxes?

Also, I gather from other threads, if you have to store your furniture at either end (especially the destination in Australia), insurance by the week for storage is extra and can be quite steep, does anyone have further information or testimonials about temporary storage?

Thanks

Since costs are still rising, all the estimates I'm getting for a summer move are very careful to specify that the estimates are non binding.....

I'm wondering how far in advance the freight forwarding companies are willing to give binding price.  

Oh my gosh, my initial estimate for relocation, including flights, is now up to 32K $AUS. Bringing 2 mammalian pets sure adds to the cost.
Now to see if they consider that a reasonable budget.

4 hours ago, Marisawright said:

That is true. You can search for sold prices BUT agents are not obliged to reveal what a house sold for, so it is incomplete.

The big difficulty, like I said, is that it's almost impossible to make fair comparisons, because you can't trust the photos.

 

But when appraisers or evaluators or real estate agents come in to value the house, they use recent comparable sold values.  So if an individual doesn't have access to the sold prices, they are at a disadvantage compared to the agents.  Is there a publicly accessible database of actual sold, not asking, prices?

I'm not concerned about making fair comparisons based on photos, of course I know many of the tricks, like taking ultrawide angle photos and digitally imposing furniture without distortion.  Ultrawide angle distortion to make a walkway look like a yard.  Overexposing walls to hide flaws.  Closeup of plants to distract from mildew between the tiles.  I'm concerned about finding out how much houses in given neighborhoods in varying states of renovation or upkeep are selling for.  But a couple of months of looking at the progression of houses for sale does provide some education.  Identifying signs of rising damp on the walls, panels likely to be asbestos especially if the laundry rooms have never been remodeled, evidence of roof damage, etc, etc, etc.  All of that can be assessed during home inspections.  

So, if you don't use a buyer's agent, are the online sites like Realestate.com or Domain.com complete enough to get comparable sold prices from?  If they only show the asking price for homes not sold at auction, it's not a complete capture of the market.  How does a buyer get the comps?  (I do think that most buyers agents are far overpaid in the markets in which they have a near monopoly, so I'd be happy to avoid them).

Reading through this topic, it seems like it should be possible for newly arrived expats to get a mortgage outright upon arriving in WA with A) Permanent resident Visas, B) a 4 year job contract for one to start,  with a clear pathway for a permanent position after that and C) a 10-20% deposit (or more).  

The problem with renting first and then finding a place 6 months down the line is 1) finding a place to rent with 4 legged hairy pets, and 2) the partner will be incredibly difficult to budge once settled in a place.  We'll have some temporary housing lined up, but I'm not sure yet what 'temporary' entails.  

From reading above, it seems like credit scores don't rule the day, but how will the banks calculate a credit rating without an Australian credit history?  I'm just trying to guess what a mortgage rate would be, although with global inflation on the rise, it seems like we might be looking at interest rates rising in the future.  

On 15/09/2021 at 17:15, RandL said:

 Definitely  contact  a settlement agent to get some advise on the process ,  not the real-estate agent .

Can you get a good chance at prime property (ie, best value, not highest priced highest amenity houses), without have a buyer's agent with advanced notice of property sales?  ie, do the seller's agents protect the industry by giving buyers with agents first notice and first crack at houses before they are widely advertised?

Ok, thanks, so 10k Australian doesn't buy a whole lotta pounds or euros, but it's something.  I doubt it will be 25K, but hopefully enough for a cargo container and a couple of flights. 

18 months repayable seems really short, I'm used to 3 or 5  years commitment or relocation expenses must be paid back.  

Yeah, I should be able to bring a month's worth of medication, but not more than that.  I'm just worried that Medicare will require me to trial DMARDs for 9 months.  In which case I'll be out of work for a year.  No way will I be able to get a non-desk job if I hobble into an interview for a skilled labor job. 

It's an 858 Visa, so length just depends on how much we like it there, or rather, how much my wife likes her job, since that is rather her priority.  I like the northern Atlantic weather myself, so I think western Australia will be a challenge.   Export allowance will be beyond negotiation probably.  

If people don't mind the question, does anyone know, or have personal experience with, what a typical relocation allowance from a larger Australian company is for people with sponsored Visas?  I know we'll find out soon enough what we are being offered, but I'm browsing shipping expenses at the moment, and impatient.

Thanks

Is there a central clearing house for rental listings in Perth or Melbourne, or do you have to check 10s of individual property management and listing sites?  Other places I've lived seem to have had one database site that rose to the top where you could find 90% of rental listings, it doesn't seem like realestate.com.au has absorbed all the rental listings though.