Financial Care Services Newsletter

by Christine Hopper
Volume 14 Edition 10 – 31 October 2024

Christine at Financial Care Services, the specialist adviser to seniors in transition to new lifestyles

Contacting Centrelink

In an ideal world, we would never need to speak to a Centrelink officer; we would all interact totally via our MyGov accounts and electronically upload all documents correctly.

In the real world of Australian seniors, not everyone has internet access and great digital skills.
Among those who do have the skills and access to the internet, not every senior is comfortable providing personal information there.

Ongoing Age Pensioners’ options for updating Centrelink records

If you have started your Age Pension but need to inform Centrelink of a change in your asset or income position, your options include:

Option 1 The Centrelink preferred option of accessing your Asset record within your Centrelink record via your MyGov account.

You could ‘edit’ the balance amount of an existing bank account record.
If you have opened another bank account such as a term deposit, you could ‘add’ your new account.
You could be asked to upload a document showing your new account details and its opening balance.
If you have closed a bank account, then you ‘edit’ its balance to zero but keep its record on your Centrelink Asset record.
You might be asked to upload a bank statement showing the relevant amounts and transaction dates.

While you are in your Asset record, you could ‘edit’ the values of your motor vehicles to the latest Red Book values for that make/model/year.

Option 2 When you really need to speak with a human at Centrelink

Within the Centrelink part of MyGov is a link to book an appointment to talk to a Centrelink officer.

When you have sold your principal residence, then you are required to contact Centrelink.
You could make an appointment to visit a Centrelink office and show the conveyancer paperwork for your home sale.

If you have gained, or separated from, a domestic partner, then you might just need a short telephone discussion appointment to direct you to the necessary Centrelink forms.

Option 3 When using the internet to access your MyGov is not practicable, you may call Centrelink Older Persons line 132300.

You must be ready to quote your Centrelink CRN when you call 132300.
Centrelink prefer you to call during Centrelink business hours of 8 am to 5 pm Monday to Friday.
The wait times are long and the queue is cut-off at 4.30 pm.

In practice, if you do not want to be on hold for hours, the best times to call are
a few seconds after 8 am Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday mornings
OR Saturday between 8 am and 1.30 pm.

When your call is ‘answered’ you must quote your Centrelink CRN from your Pensioner Concession Card, and say which service you want.

Option 4 You may visit a Centrelink service centre office.

Centrelink discourage in-person visits without an appointment.
On arrival you might need to join the queue to check-in at the Centrelink front desk.

You could be allowed to make an appointment to come back another day for an in-person meeting to discuss your Centrelink position.
You might be allowed to hand in your documents and accept an appointment for a telephone call from a Centrelink officer.

The least preferred option is for your situation to be so urgent that to wait to speak to a Centrelink officer that day.

Contacting Centrelink before you start an Age Pension

Without a Centrelink Customer Reference Number CRN, you cannot utilise the Centrelink telephone system.
Hence Options 1, 2 and 3 are not accessible to you immediately.

Your first challenge could be to prove your identity as a long-term Australian citizen or Permanent Resident and obtain a Centrelink CRN.

Establishing your MyGov account involved only the basics of ‘proving your identity’.
Therefore, you could expect to be able to generate a Centrelink CRN by linking to Centrelink within your MyGov account.

Then you need to quote your Passport number.
You could use a current Passport or an Australian Passport that expired within the last three years.
Next you must provide details from your Medicare Card and/or your Driver Licence.

You could apply for a Centrelink benefit via your MyGov account as a means of generating a Centrelink CRN.
This approach might not be effective if you are too young for an Age Pension.

Alternatively, you could walk into a Centrelink service centre and ask for an appointment to discuss your eligibility for any Centrelink benefits.
While you are at Centrelink you could show your original identity documents and be assigned a CRN.

If visiting Centrelink in person, you must show original document to ‘prove’ your commencement as an Australian citizen or ‘permanent resident of Australia’, plus your existence in the Australian community.

For the primary part, you could use your full Australian Birth Certificate, or Australian Passport, or Australian Citizenship Certificate or a Visa to enter Australia for the primary part.
Then for the secondary part you could use your Driver Licence, a foreign Passport, or Australin marriage Certificate (the printed version from the State government registry not the one that the celebrant gave you on your wedding day).

Finally, you need to show another document that includes your name and address and/or photo.
You could show a recent utility bill, Council Rates notice or motor vehicle registration notice.
You must take the original documents to Centrelink and wait while the Centrelink staff take photocopies.

When you disagree with Centrelink

Remember the Centrelink staff are people just like us.
They sometimes make mistakes just like we do.
Individual team members might then have difficulty acknowledging that the Centrelink team were wrong.
Please be polite even when you are distressed by their misunderstanding of your position.

You may ask for a particular Centrelink decision to be ‘reviewed’.

But you must give a specific reason for requesting a ‘review’.
For example, Centrelink rejected your claim for Rent Assistance because Centrelink treat you as a ‘homeowner’ when you live in a modest manufactured home that cost you $120,000.
The decision that you want ‘reviewed’ could be “I am a non-homeowner not a homeowner at Centrelink”.
Your ‘reason’ could be “The purchase price for my manufactured home-unit was below the maximum for a non-homeowner and I am paying site fees to the lifestyle resort where my home-unit is parked”.

Ways of asking Centrelink for a review

Your request for the review of a decision could be a letter that clearly states:
– the particular decision you want reviewed, give the date and reference of the Centrelink notice that informed you of that decision
-the outcome that you want from the review
– your reasons for that outcome, clearly and politely state where you think the Centrelink reasoning is wrong.

If letter writing is not your greatest skill, then you could use the Centrelink form “Explanation or formal review of a decision (SS351)”.

Then mail your letter and/or form SS351, together with your supporting documents to
Centrelink
Reply Paid 7800
Canberra BC ACT 2610

Alternatively, you could call Centrelink on the usual 132300 older person line and ask for a decision to be explained and then reviewed.
The Centrelink team member must complete the ‘reason for review’ box in the Centrelink internal on-line review request module.
Before you call Centrelink, you could write yourself a note of your ‘reason for review’ so that you are ready to state it clearly.

When could you expect a response to your request for a review of a Centrelink decision

Once your review request is received by Centrelink it joins the queue to wait for the attention of an experienced review officer.
Centrelink aim to complete reviews within fifty days.
But the queue could be long and the cases ahead of you could be complex.
Hence you could be waiting a few months before Centrelink contact you again.
During your waiting time you go on an internet search for your lost money, if any.

Centrelink welcome your feedback

When your Centrelink interactions are extreme then you might want the Complaints and Feedback line.
You can call 1800 132 468 to make a complaint or give Centrelink a suggestion or compliment.

Help to understand how your situation fits in the Age Pension and Seniors Health Card system

Before you engage with the wonders of Centrelink, you might wish to check if you are eligible for an Age Pension or Commonwealth Seniors Health Card.

The calculation of your potential Age Pension amount, if any, can be challenging.
The easy route is to ask for the Age Pension Illustration Personal Data form as a checklist of essential data and then arrange for a ‘Age Pension Illustration Short Consultation’ with Christine Hopper of Financial Care Services.

But if you are too wealthy for an Age Pension then you could consider a Commonwealth Seniors Health Card.
This Health Card has a different Income Test from the Age Pension.

Also, the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card has a shorter minimum Australian residency requirement than the Age Pension.

Christine at Financial Care Services writes these Newsletters.
She can help you to understand your Age Pension and/or Seniors Health Card situation.

Christine Hopper of Financial Care Services offers ‘personal factual financial information’ in the form of an Illustration of the amount of Centrelink Age Pension you could receive today provided that you satisfied the age and residency conditions for a Centrelink Age Pension.

Contact Christine at Financial Care Services to obtain the Age Pension Illustration Personal Data form.
You will also receive our Client Services Guide that provides essential information about Christine Hopper at Financial Care Services.

Alternatively, you could search through the Centrelink website for clues about Pension rates and means tests then do the sums yourself.

Help with Centrelink Claims

Christine Hopper of Financial Care Services helps clients navigate the Centrelink Age Pension Claim process.
Christine could help you Claim an Age Pension via MyGov or the paper form if you really do not want to engage with Centrelink on-line.

Christine at Financial Care Services charges hourly rate fees for helping with Centrelink matters.

Looking for Lost Money

Have you lost contact with any of your money?

Remember that rainy day money you quietly parked in a five-year term deposit at another bank.
That other bank would have rolled it over for another five years when you moved away without a new contact address.

Did you close mum’s old passbook account when you started doing her banking online?
Maybe dad still has a term deposit or savings account, holding his funeral money.

If those bank accounts have not been active in the last seven years then your money might have been transferred to the Commonwealth as ‘lost money’.

Yes, you could retrieve your ‘lost money’.
But first you must identify it on the ASIC lost money register and then you prove that it is yours.

What is lost money in inactive accounts?

Bank accounts are deemed to be ‘inactive’ if no transactions have been initiated by the owner for seven years.
If you have not withdrawn any money or deposited any cash, cheques, pension payments or received any EFT credits then your account could be ‘inactive’ according to the Commonwealth government’s definition.

An account could be ‘inactive’ while still having interest credited and bank fees deducted every year.
Your term deposit could be ‘inactive’ if you do not give a new instruction within seven years.
Just having the term deposit automatically rolled over for a similar term does not count as an owner-initiated transaction.
Lost money in inactive accounts includes bank accounts that their owners have forgotten about.

Inactive accounts with credit unions, building societies and other regulated deposit takers are treated as ‘lost money’ also.
Some unclaimed life insurance contracts which have not been claimed on maturity are labelled as ‘inactive’.

Financial institutions must regularly check for inactive accounts.
Any money in a recently discovered inactive account must be paid to the Commonwealth as ‘lost money’.

Can I find out if my family has lost money in inactive accounts?

ASIC maintains a listing of Lost money in inactive accounts.
You can search the list of Lost money in inactive accounts at ASIC Find unclaimed money – Moneysmart.gov.au
Hint: Search the list using each variation of your name, particularly if your family changed the spelling to shorten or anglicize their names on arrival in Australia.
Remember that long ago when we were young, banks did not ask for any personal identification when opening a new bank account.
New customers just told the bank the full name of the account holder; you could choose your own name.

Lost, superannuation accounts

Superannuation accounts could become ‘lost’ when unclaimed by retirees.

The Australian Taxation Office is the guardian of lost and ‘unclaimed superannuation’ accounts for seniors.

Tax file numbers, TFNs, have been recorded on superannuation accounts for the last thirty years.
Hence a search by TFN could be expected to find all of your superannuation accounts.

But any pre-1994 superannuation accounts that missed the TFN collection phase could still be resting with the ATO.
Remember you might not have attached your TFN when you rolled over a preserved termination benefit to an Eligible Rollover Fund pre-1994.
You can read about the ATO superannuation lost and unclaimed superannuation records.
Keeping track of your super | Australian Taxation Office (ato.gov.au)

But searching the ATO superannuation lost and unclaimed superannuation records is via your MyGov account only.

About Christine at Financial Care Services

Christine at Financial Care Services understands the Centrelink system for assessing means tested aged care fees and Pensions.  
Christine at Financial Care Services works with families to clarify the costs for their family member to enter residential aged care.

Christine at Financial Care Services is an independent advisory service specialising in retirees of modest means and aged care entrants.
Our core values of working with clients in their lifestyle transitions supports claiming DVA and Centrelink entitlements.

Christine at Financial Care Services charges fees based on the work involved in advising you about pensions health cards and aged care costs.

To make an appointment for confidential, independent and professional advice about aged care, retirement lifestyle or Centrelink issues please contact Christine Hopper or call +61 3 9808 0338.

_______________________________________

Christine Hopper
Financial Care Services
Independent aged care, strategic lifestyle and Social Security advice for seniors in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Telephone – call +61 3 9808 0338
Email – contact Christine@financialcareservices.com.au
Address – mail to 2B Thomas Street, Camberwell Victoria 3124
Website – visit financialcareservices.com.au
LinkedIn – connect https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinehopper1
Past newsletters – see http://financialcareservices.com.au/newsletters/
Newsletter – subscribe http://eepurl.com/js41T

Disclaimer: The information contained in this newsletter is of a general nature only and does not constitute “financial advice”.
All eligibility for Commonwealth benefits will be determined by Centrelink or DVA, based on your personal position as documented and the legislation and Regulations in force at that time.

© 2024 Christine Hopper @ Financial Care Services. All rights reserved.