*This article is written in partnership with AIA Australia
Senior IT executive Liz Abrahams had enjoyed a “fantastic career trajectory” with ambitions to move onto corporate boards before she was dealt devastating news a year ago.
“I was actually diagnosed with advanced or stage four metastatic breast cancer,’’ she tells Professional Planner.
“It was a real surprise and the main thing that went through my mind at the time that I was diagnosed was ‘wow, this is life changing, how am I going to sustain my family and health and our lives?’
“The very first thing that comes to you, when you are the main breadwinner, is the financial support.”
Abrahams thanks her financial planner, Melbourne-based adviser Kurt Smyth, for including income protection insurance in her financial plan about 20 years ago, a policy which also allowed her to access insurer AIA’s rehabilitation programs along her cancer journey.
“It’s really hard to figure out how you’re going to go through treatment and everything that’s part of that, when you have to worry about money,’’ Abrahams says.
“The first thing that I’d say to anybody, thinking about advising their clients is… it meant everything. It really helped me, in my head, work through what was going to happen over the coming months.”
Days after her diagnosis, Abrahams started a “really challenging” treatment journey which included surgery and chemotherapy to curtail the cancer that had metastasized in her spine.
Payments from her income protection claim started a few months after diagnosis and in February 2022, she began with AIA Australia’s Wellness and Work Readiness cancer recovery program RESTORE CaRe.
She worked with an AIA appointed rehabilitation consultant who collaborated with her employer Infosys and medical providers to plan a way back to work five months before her return.
“I [initially] thought that I would be back at work in August of this year, and I’d be back full time,’’ Abrahams says.
“I had no comprehension of the side effects of pain and again, every level of support AIA has given me, has helped me face my medical situation and make the most of it and to engage my employer in a really constructive way.
“I knew I needed to make changes to my lifestyle and my health to manage the treatment, but I didn’t think I needed help in my head to be okay with managing the journey.”
She now works a 20-hour week in an inclusion and diversity role at Infosys which gives her time to continue her treatment.
“I couldn’t wait to get back to work even when I was unwell,” Abrahams says. “I really missed work. I had the most amazing job. It was intellectually stimulating, the teams that I led were awesome, the business environment that I worked in was super exciting.”
“I really missed work and the thing with getting cancer and this diagnosis; I was grieving my health but I was grieving my career.”
Abrahams says her life expectancy is “precarious” with a prognosis of three to five years, so she spends her free time advocating cancer prevention.
“What’s really important to me now is using the time that I’ve got to create really good memories with my family and my friends, and it’s important for my mental and emotional health to really use the time that I’ve got, when I’m not working, to raise awareness,’’ Abrahams says.
This includes telling people to screen and get early diagnosis, organise income protection with a financial planner and stay healthy.
“It’s one thing to climb the corporate ladder, and it’s entirely another if you neglect your health,’’ Abrahams says.
‘Success is measured in various ways’
AIA Australia rehabilitation and wellbeing team manager Taeylor Hatton says the insurer has 34 rehabilitation staff in three major capital cities with an array of allied health qualifications who support AIA’s customers at the moment.
The opt-in service helps customers from income protection (IP) get “back to life” after illness or injury.
“Although we absolutely rely on the medical advice, we rely a lot on where the customer is at in their journey and, one of AIA’s operating philosophies is that the right support at the right time, gets the right results,’’ Hatton says.
There are a variety of rehabilitation programs available to AIA customers, with support being tailored to some of the most claimed conditions including mental health conditions, musculoskeletal conditions, as well as Cancer. These programs can support improving a customers wellness, work readiness and return to work.
Hatton says success is measured in various ways.
“AIA prides itself on supporting people to live healthier, longer, better lives so success can be different for each client,’’ Hatton says.
“Someone may get on the phone and say, I just want to go back to work… for them, success is going back to work whether that’s what they used to do or something new based on medical advice available.”
For some people, success is being able to return back to playing with their kids again, or they are able to participate in activities of daily living around the house.
Hatton wants financial advisers to be aware of the support that’s available to their customers, because they become a huge advocate when they are more aware of the services.
“We very much work collaboratively with the claims team to identify the right support for our customers,’’ Hatton says.
“We take a biopsychosocial approach and the premise behind that is you’re addressing people’s pillars of wellbeing in order to re-establish who they are, and then to better be able to support their wellness and work goals.”
“That’s a key component of a wellbeing program, it’s important to establish those general goals more broadly outside of what work is because work is such a small part of who people are,’’ Hatton says.
AIA’s RESTORE programs form part of AIA Embrace – a comprehensive wellbeing ecosystem of world-class products, programs and partnerships. This framework has been designed to help customers, partners and the broader community embrace better health and wellbeing.
In offering a broad range of health and wellbeing services to its customers, partners and broader community, AIA proudly delivers on its purpose of making a difference by helping people lead healthier, longer, better lives.
