Life Insurance
What?
Life insurance is the most basic form of protection, designed to cover you for a designated period of time and will pay out on death during the term of the policy. It can be either a level term (lump sum) or a decreasing sum that will fall, typically in line with your mortgage balance.
Why?
A life insurance policy is tailored to allow a lump sum/ payout to be left in the event of death. Many people take out a policy for peace of mind if something happened to themselves, with the payout normally used to ensure your family will not struggle financially going forward. It can also be used to repay a mortgage or loans or put into trust for children for future life events such as buying their first home or university tuition.
Critical/ Serious Illness Cover
What?
A critical/ serious illness plan is specific cover designed to pay out a lump sum in the event of being diagnosed with one of the the providers pre-specified illnesses. These policies usually are added on to your standard life insurance policy as an extra.
Why?
Statistics suggest that 1 in 2 people will be diagnosed with a critical or serious illness during their lifetime. With this in mind, this is often a crucial addition to your standard life cover policy. While your typical life only insurance plan pays out on death, many illnesses may mean you cannot work but will still have to pay your bills. The lump sum payout can insure financial stability for yourself and your family as well as, in extreme cases allow high quality time with your family in case the illness worsens.
Income Protection
What?
An income protection policy is designed to pay out an agreed monthly sum if you are unable to work due to injury or illness. These policies will continue to pay out until you have been able to return to work and will run in most circumstances up to your retirement age, depending on how the policy is constructed.
Why?
For anyone unfortunate enough to have time off work through injury or illness, you will still be liable for your bills, including mortgages/ loans, credit cards etc. A IP policy will pay out a percentage of your income to ensure that even though you cannot earn, your bills and financial position won’t be affected. This policy would work alongside your sick pay through work, as these are often short term (6-12months) and then ensure you are covered after your work pay finishes.
Business Protection
Business insurance is the process of ensuring a business can financially survive or maintain service levels in the loss of death or illness of a Director or key worker. Having this protection in place can be crucial in allowing a business to minimise financial impact or recover quickly in a worst case scenario.
In most cases the policy is paid for by the business and can be tax efficient with the business being the financial beneficiary.
Types of policies include:
Shareholder protection: this allows fellow business owners and shareholders to buy back shares with a lump sum pay out, from a co shareholder who may have been diagnosed with a critical illness or who has died.
Key person cover: a life insurance / critical illness policy paid for by the business where in the event of death/ serious illness of a key worker the business will receive a pay out to ensure that the financial impact of this loss is minimal
If you own a business, and feel that you need protection in the event of death or illness for yourself, a fellow director or employee, feel free to get in touch and we will look through your circumstances and tailor a policy that suits your need.
