If you are diagnosed with a critical illness, it can severely impact your finances as you may need some times off work for your treatment and recovery.
Critical illness insurance pays out a lump sum payment when you are diagnosed with one of the specified illnesses covered by your policy.
Here Malcolm has compiled a video to talk to you about the significance of having the correct insurance in place for your situation.
If you are looking for critical illness advice in Newcastle, please get in touch to speak to a Life Insurance Specialist in Newcastle. We give all/existing customers a free, no-obligation protection review that can often be arranged on the same day. During this consultation, you’ll get teamed up with one of our Specialist Mortgage Advisors in Newcastle.
They will look at any existing policies you have in place and assess their suitability, then recommend you with the best insurance policy that matches your circumstances and meets your monthly budget.
Some of the illnesses covered by critical illness policies differ between providers. To give you an idea, certain types of Cancer, Heart attack & Stroke are covered as standard by most insurers. However, it’s vital that you read the policy document thoroughly to understand what is and isn’t covered.
You need to be honest and tell the truth when filling your application; otherwise, you are at risk of voiding your entire policy.
Having a pre-existing condition does not mean that you will be unable to find someone that will offer you critical illness insurance.
Mortgage Protection Insurance is a term used to encompass various different types of cover designed to protect borrowers from events which could severely impact their ability to maintain mortgage payments.
There are different variations but when connected to a mortgage they are all there to provide peace of mind and usually fall into the following categories:
As a rule, if the policyholder dies within the term, then the sum assured should be enough to pay off the outstanding mortgage balance and ensure the borrower’s dependents aren’t left with a debt they might not otherwise be able to manage. Our advisors are able to run through all the different types of life cover and recommend the most suitable plan for you.
There’s an argument that says that life cover is taken for the benefit of other people – i.e. your dependents – because sadly you won’t be around to see any benefit yourself. However, these days, thanks to improvements in the sort of medical treatment available, many people now survive conditions which once might have been fatal.
Nevertheless, whilst undergoing what may be long spells of treatment and recovery, it could have a marked effect on your ability to meet your financial commitments. This has led to the development of Critical Illness Insurance.
Critical Illness Insurance works in a similar way to Life Assurance, in that it is usually taken for a specific term of years and can have different options such as level/increasing etc. It is designed to pay out a lump sum and, like Life cover, for borrowers, it is typically taken on a decreasing term basis in line with the reduction of your mortgage balance.
The key is that the benefit is paid if you fall victim to one of a number of specified critical illnesses, and pays out whatever the long term prognosis of that illness. The type of illnesses covered vary from company to company, that’s why this type of insurance cannot be solely price-driven and advice is recommended.
In practice many companies will offer Life and Critical Illness Critical cover as a combined policy and would usually payout on the “first event” i.e. whatever happens first – either death or a serious illness – the pay-out is made. They can also be written on a single or joint life basis
Whereas Life and Critical Illness cover pay out a lump sum, “Income Protection” pays out a monthly sum designed to replace your wages in the event of you being unfit to work. Unlike Critical Illness cover, there are no restrictions on the illnesses or injuries covered, the only factor being whether they make you unfit to work.
There are however restrictions on how much you can cover and how quickly benefits would start to be paid. Like Life and Critical Illness cover, these policies are underwritten based on your health and lifestyle at the time you apply. All income protection policies are written on a single life basis.
Similar in many ways to Income Protection these policies also cover you should you be made unemployed. Benefits are usually linked to your mortgage and other costs (rather than necessarily your wages) and would usually be paid one month “in arrears” after a successful claim.
These policies are only underwritten at the time of a claim rather than at the outset, which can sometimes mean there can be some confusion/delay as to whether a claim would actually be met.
They are clearly a useful safety net if you are made long-term unemployed but be sure to check the details of how/when any unemployment benefits would be paid out, as it may be that you would have returned to work before any monies become due.
Probably the least common of the “mortgage protection” type policies but can often be valuable – particularly for those with young families. These plans can be taken to cover Life and/or Critical Illness and are underwritten on an application in the same way as mentioned above.
However, unlike the traditional forms of policy, rather than pay out a lump sum, the cover would pay an annual or monthly income for the remainder of the term of the plan. Thus it can replace the income of the main breadwinner for a number of years, dependent upon a particular client’s circumstances and, because of this would usually be written on a level or basis, or an index-linked basis designed to keep up with inflation.
There’s an old adage that says you can never have too much insurance. Certainly, many people have one or more of the different types of policy and it would be wrong to think of Mortgage Protection Insurance as just an “either/or” choice.
However, in the real world, affordability plays a massive part, so whilst it would be fantastic to cover yourself for every potential opportunity, a good advisor will sit down with you and tailor the type of cover to be the most suitable combination to your family’s priority and budget.
If you do take more than one type of policy, however, your advisor would usually place all the cover with one provider. This is to save you the additional policy administration charges which individual policies carry but which are reduced when bringing all the policies under one plan.
Income Protection Insurance is designed to pay out a monthly benefit if you are unable to work due to illness or accident.
The applicant can decide along with the help of their Advisor how much cover to take out. Also how long they are prepared to wait before they are entitled to put a claim in.
Income Protection insurance can be expensive compared to life cover. As you are far more likely to be unable to work due to illness than die.
The monthly benefit continues to be paid out until you return to work unless you have selected the “Budget” version of the policy. This typically only pays out for 24 months but is much cheaper.
The big advantage of Income Protection Insurance is that unlike Critical Illness Cover it pays out for whatever is preventing you from working. Unlike Critical Illness which is just a list of specified illnesses.
This type of policy is very popular amongst the self-employed and also employed applicants who do not benefit from generous Employer sick pay schemes.
It’s very important to us that all of our customers are given an equal opportunity to take insurance our through ourselves. We wouldn’t be doing our job right if we didn’t mention it!
We offer all of our customers a free, no-obligation protection review where we’ll have a look at any existing policies you have in place and assess their suitability.
We’ll then recommend which products, including critical illness and income protection that meet your needs. If required, we’ll then tailor the plan to match your available monthly budget.
Life insurance is designed to pay out, usually in a lump sum, in the event of death. With regards to your mortgage, the sum assured should be enough to pay off your outstanding balance.
Here is some information about the most popular types:
Whole of life insurance does not have an end date, therefore, providing premiums are being met the policy will pay out. Generally speaking, this type of insurance is used for family protection and also as part of inheritance tax planning.
Term assurance is the most popular type of family insurance used to cover a mortgage.
Our Advisors will recommend the sum assured and term of the policy, usually to run in line with your new mortgage. The providing that all premiums are maintained, the sum assured will be paid out if you were to die during the term.
There are various types of Term Assurance available, such as decreasing and increasing cover. As part of our personal protection review, the most suitable policy for your needs will be recommended.
This is another version of Term Assurance, where instead of the sum assured being paid as a lump sum on death, it’s paid as an agreed monthly payment. This is very good for families looking to insure an income.
A good advisor, will usually recommend a mixture of insurance types tailor made to match your personal and family requirements.
If you are part of a couple, you could consider taking out a single life policy that will pay out in the event of one of you dying.
This can be cheaper than paying the premiums on two separate policies, but bear in mind that joint policies only pay out on the first death, after that the cover ends.
If you had two separate policies, the second policy would remain in force even after a claim had been made on the first.
Many companies offer their employees family a lump sum payment if the staff member dies while they are employed by the firm.
Although this doesn’t mean the death has to be at the workplace or in any way related to the job done.
This cover will most likely end as soon as you leave the company.
It’s very important to us that all of our customers are given an equal opportunity to take insurance our through ourselves. We wouldn’t be doing our job right if we didn’t mention it!
We offer all of our customers a free, no-obligation protection review where we’ll have a look at any existing policies you have in place and assess their suitability. We’ll then recommend which products, including critical illness and income protection that meet your needs. If required, we’ll then tailor the plan to match your available monthly budget.
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