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If you are a lawyer employed by a firm in Australia, there is a reasonable chance your superannuation is with LegalSuper. It is the industry default fund for the legal profession, and for most employed legal professionals it is where employer contributions land without any active decision being made.
What very few lawyers have actually done is open the policy document and read what is in there.
This is not a criticism. Lawyers are among the busiest professionals in the country. They are across their clients' risk exposures in extraordinary detail and almost entirely unaware of their own. The general assumption is that LegalSuper was designed for legal professionals, so it must be adequate. In my experience reviewing these policies on a regular basis, it almost never is.
Here is what you are actually looking at, and what it means for you.
Default cover inside LegalSuper generally provides three types of insurance: life cover, total and permanent disability cover, and income protection. For many members this cover is provided automatically without any application or underwriting, which is genuinely valuable. The issue is not whether the cover exists. It is the level of it and the definitions that govern it.
Default life cover is typically a flat dollar amount or a multiple of your salary. For a junior solicitor this may feel reasonable. For a senior barrister, a firm partner or a specialist with a high income and significant financial commitments, the default amount is almost always insufficient. It will not clear your debts, maintain your family's lifestyle, fund ongoing school fees and provide long-term income replacement at the same time. It was never designed to do all of that.
TPD cover inside the fund is generally structured on what is called an any occupation definition, not an own occupation definition. This is one of the most consequential distinctions in all of personal insurance and most lawyers have never had it explained to them. Under an any occupation definition, you must demonstrate that you are unable to work in any occupation whatsoever before a payout is triggered. Under an own occupation definition, you only need to demonstrate that you are unable to work in your specific role as a legal professional. For barristers and solicitors whose work demands high-level cognitive function, precise communication and the ability to perform under sustained pressure. The own occupation definition is the one that actually reflects the reality of what they do. The default inside LegalSuper does not offer this.
Income protection inside super is typically capped at 70 percent of your salary and comes with a benefit period that is far shorter than most members assume. Two years is common. Sometimes five. For a legal professional in their thirties or forties with decades of earning potential ahead of them, a two-year benefit period does not come close to covering the real financial exposure of a serious illness or injury. You are protected for the short term and left exposed for everything beyond it.
When I sit down with a legal professional to review their insurance position, the finding is almost always the same. It is not one specific problem. It is the size of the gap between the total cover they hold and the total financial exposure they actually carry.
Most lawyers have a mortgage or are actively building towards one. Many have school-age children with ongoing fee commitments. They have built a lifestyle on the basis of a strong professional income and that lifestyle does not pause because they are unable to work. It continues. And the default cover inside LegalSuper was not designed to sustain it.
The cover was designed to provide a baseline. A starting point. The difference between a baseline and genuine protection is something most legal professionals have simply never been shown, because no one has ever sat down with them and mapped one against the other.
There is something about the legal profession that does not get discussed openly enough. Burnout, anxiety, chronic stress and mental health challenges are common. The data across the profession is consistent and the experience of the clients I work with confirms it regularly.
Here is why this matters directly for insurance. Once a mental health concern appears in a GP record, even a passing mention of stress or difficulty coping, insurers can apply a mental health exclusion to any new policy taken out after that point. This means a lawyer who waits until they are already under pressure to review their cover may find that the most likely reason they would ever make a claim is now excluded from their protection entirely.
This is not a hypothetical. I see it happen regularly.
The window for comprehensive cover is before any record of stress or mental health concerns exists. For legal professionals that window is often narrower than they expect, because the demands of the profession mean many are already managing significant pressure long before they would think to speak to anyone about it.
The most practical thing I can tell you is this. Do not wait.
If you are a barrister operating as a sole trader, a partner in a boutique firm or a lawyer who has moved into self-employment and set up a self-managed super fund, your exposure is often greater than that of your employed counterparts.
SMSFs do not automatically provide insurance. Without an employer directing contributions into a fund that carries default cover, self-employed legal professionals frequently end up with no life insurance, no TPD and no income protection at all. Not because they made a decision to go without it, but because they never got around to setting it up.
This is one of the most consistent gaps I find when working with senior legal professionals. The income is often at its highest point in their career. The financial commitments are significant. And the protection is entirely absent. It is a straightforward problem to fix, but it requires someone to actually identify it first.
There is another layer to this that is worth understanding, particularly for lawyers who are considering their options.
Holding insurance inside superannuation has real advantages. Premiums are paid from your super balance rather than from take-home income, which provides cash flow relief and can be particularly attractive for younger professionals managing growing financial commitments. This is why it remains a sensible option for many legal professionals, and why reviewing what is inside your existing fund is always the right starting point.
However, holding cover inside super also comes with limitations. TPD definitions are often more restrictive inside the super environment due to regulatory requirements. Trauma insurance, which pays a lump sum on diagnosis of conditions like cancer, heart attack or stroke, cannot be held inside super at all. And the process of accessing a payout from a super fund in the event of a claim involves additional steps that can extend the time it takes to receive funds.
Understanding the trade-offs and structuring cover in a way that accounts for both cost and accessibility is exactly the kind of decision that benefits from specialist advice. It is not a one-size-fits-all answer and the right structure will look different depending on your income, your stage of career and your personal financial commitments.
When I work through a legal professional's insurance position, the process is straightforward. We look at what cover currently exists, what the definitions mean in practice, whether the levels are adequate against real financial obligations and what gaps need to be addressed.
The initial consultation is complimentary. There is no obligation and no cost for that first conversation.
For most legal professionals it is the first time anyone has explained what their policy actually says, in plain language, with specific reference to how it would operate if they ever needed to use it. The response is almost always the same. Relief that they finally understand it, and a clear picture of what needs to change.
Most lawyers spend their careers making sure their clients are not exposed to risk they are unaware of. This is the same thing, applied to their own position.
If you have not had this conversation yet, it is worth having.
The right time to review your cover is before something forces the issue. Once a health concern is on record or your circumstances change, your options narrow. Book a free 30-minute consultation with OSE Advisory and find out exactly where you stand.
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