MetLife is here to support you

When life takes an unexpected turn MetLife is here to help. Our customer Ms M found this out when she was diagnosed with breast cancer a few years ago. At the time, she didn’t know how she’d manage treatment and rehabilitation as her first priorities. The bankruptcy of her employer added another layer of anxiety to her challenges.

When Ms M and her doctors found out why she was sick, her treatment began with a mastectomy, quickly followed by six weeks of chemo and another six weeks of radiation.

The forgotten cover of income protection

But it wasn’t until she was driving home one afternoon when she heard an ad for income protection on the radio that she decided to see what coverage she had.

“I’d forgotten I had income protection,” she said. “The ad reminded me that actually I’d signed up when I first had kids, and so I decided to see what insurance had.”

She first asked her fund, and it was pointed out that MetLife provided the insurance she set up all those years ago.

“The way my fund connected me to MetLife was really easy,” she says. When Ms M made her claim, she got a case manager, Cara Hu, who also brought Strategy and Recovery Specialist Alex Russo on board.

A smooth claims and support process

“Making a claim was simple, the forms were clear and easy to fill out,” she says. The toughest part was remembering to get her specialists to fill out their parts. “When you’re seeing a doctor, sometimes a form isn’t the first thing you think about,” she says.

MetLife’s Cara Hu and Alex Russo were there throughout Ms M’s recovery journey. They organised a place for her in a six-week “Enrich Program” with the Cancer Council and then into MetLife’s Nourish Program. Ms M was enrolled in a functional improvement program which helped her deal with the side effects of treatment as well as rehabilitation counselling.

Ms M says she’d give Cara Hu, her case manager, ten-out-of-ten for all the work she put in.

“We’d mainly talk via email, but Cara also made an effort to chat on the phone regularly,” she says. “She even let me know when she was going on leave, and she made the payment process, and things like tax, really easy to understand.”

Extending support beyond the expected

Ms M thought she’d be on income protection for six months, but when that was up, she realised she needed more time to get back on her feet. Cara made it simple for Ms M to extend the MetLife support, sending the right forms and making sure Ms M knew what she needed from her doctors.

Because Ms M’s old employer had gone bankrupt, Cara and Alex helped Ms M get into a MetLife employment support program as part of her rehab. Then, in March, she got a job with a Government agency. With a new job under her belt, and good news from her cancer recovery, Ms M has finalised her income protection claim and is looking forward to a brighter future.

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