What is a serious illness?

  • A serious illness, health condition or injury can last for a short time or be long-term, and has the potential to be life-limiting and/or negatively impact your quality of life.

    The most common serious illnesses and health conditions in Australia in 2022 include [1]:

    • Mental health and behavioural conditions
    • Back problems
    • Arthritis
    • Asthma
    • Diabetes
    • Heart, stroke and vascular disease
    • Osteoporosis
    • Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
    • Cancer
    • Kidney disease

    Many people deal with shock and a range of difficult emotions after a serious illness diagnosis and can often feel overwhelmed.

    While everyone’s experience is different, we know that having a serious illness, injury or health condition can often impact your finances. That’s why we’ve created a guide to help support you during this difficult time. 

    [1] Health conditions prevalence, 2022

About our serious illness guide

Our serious illness guide - Dealing with a diagnosis: Help with managing your finances through serious illness - has been designed for anyone impacted by a serious illness, injury or health condition and concerned about their or their loved one’s finances.

It provides useful information about financial preparation and management that may help to alleviate some of the stress you may be feeling during this time. It also includes information about the financial and support services available to you if you’re caring for someone with a serious illness, injury or health condition.

The Guide can also help you if you’re currently in good health and want to prepare your finances should the unexpected happen.

Download our guide

Who developed the Guide?

We developed the Dealing with a diagnosis: Help with managing your finances through serious illness guide together with a range of community and academic experts.

We want to thank all those organisations who helped – in particular Dementia Australia, Cancer Council Victoria, Scope Australia and Uniting – for providing their expert review and input in the content, design and overall development of the guide.

How we can help

    • Early Engagement team provides ways to get back on track if you can’t make your minimum repayments by the due date. Call 13 30 95 Monday to Friday 8am to 9pm, or Saturday 9am to 2pm (Sydney/Melbourne time).
    • Financial Assistance Solutions supports CommBank customers in financial difficulty. The team work with you and discuss available options to meet your repayment obligations. Call 13 30 95 – Monday to Friday 8am to 9pm or Saturday 9am to 2pm (Sydney/Melbourne time).
    • Customer Support Service provides confidential telephone counselling services to CommBank customers based in Australia who are in need of emotional or psychological support. CommBank customers have access to 3 free phone counselling sessions. Call 1300 360 793, 24/7.
    • CommBank Estate Settlement and Support team can help with the estate settlement of deceased CommBank customers. You can call them on 1800 686 153 – Monday to Friday 8:30am to 6:30pm (Sydney/Melbourne time).
    • Business Financial Assistance team – help CommBank business customers who are experiencing financial difficulty, or might have future difficulty meeting repayments. Call our Business Financial Assistance team on 13 26 07, 24/7. 

     

Things you should know

  • The information in this booklet is general information and has been prepared without considering any one person’s objectives, financial situation or needs. For that reason, before acting on the information, you should consider its appropriateness to your circumstances and, if appropriate, seek professional assistance.

    The terms and conditions for any of the products and services offered by the Commonwealth Bank Group are available on our website and should be considered before making any decisions about those products and services.