Personal protection is a catch-all term for
any insurance policies an individual can
take out to help mitigate various risk
factors that might affect them in life. This
means personal risk. So not your car or
contents insurance, which would be
Introduction
general insurance. You’ve probably heard of life cover,
but that’s just one component of a comprehensive
personal protection plan.
With adequate personal protection in place, you and your family can have peace of mind knowing if something were to go wrong in the future, you are covered financially. Bigmores understands the numerous risks in these areas and can help advise on suitable levels of personal and business protection to ensure that you are fully protected against all eventualities.
Life assurance is a policy that will pay dependants or a nominated person, money as a lump sum or as regular payments if you die, designed to help relieve the financial burden at a tough time e.g. repay mortgage, pay funeral costs etc. The amount of money paid out depends on the level you have in place, typically at least the mortgage balance. As life assurance brokers, we can assess your individual circumstances and requirements to ensure you have sufficient life cover in place.
Policies can be taken on an individual or joint life basis. The various life assurance options available as follows:
For assistance with life cover, please get in touch with the team at Bigmores.
Critical and Serious Illness insurance are like life insurance, whereby these policies will pay out a lump sum in the event you are diagnosed with a critical illness, such as heart attack, stroke, and certain type of cancer. More comprehensive plans, at a greater cost, can also include further conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease, specific cancer types and total permanent disability.
Plans are available as an addition to life insurance but can also be purchased on a standalone basis, with the illnesses covered varying from provider to provider. The critical illness insurance benefit can be utilised how you best see fit e.g. help pay for treatment, repay mortgage, cover ongoing expenses etc.
For guidance with the right critical illness cover to give you and your family peace of mind, contact the team at Bigmores.
While the NHS provides a good service, they are faced with constant pressure to meet the needs of an ever-growing population that may lead to longer waiting lists and delays in treatment.
There is a range of options available, allowing us to create an individually tailored private healthcare pan that meets your needs and budget. You can control the costs by choosing a hospital list, excess and changing your underwriting option amongst other benefits.
Income Protection Insurance provides a replacement income in the event you are unable to work due to a serious illness or injury, up to 65% of gross income. The income protection provides a tax-free benefit that can continue to pay until you return to work or reach retirement, ensuring essential household bills are continued to be met e.g. mortgage payments.
This benefit can begin to pay-out in as little as 4 weeks up to 24 months from date of claim, this deferral period is set by you at outset depending on your budget and requirements. Both short-term income protection and long-term income protection policies are available and again, will come down to individual requirements.
We will advise you on the factors that you need to think about and what will be the most cost-efficient policy to meet these requirements. Clearly the level of cover is going to drive the cost and should be enough to meet your outgoings, but also the deferral period though which you will wait to receive payment is going to be very important both in terms of being able to manage and also, again for the cost of the cover.
It’s important to ask yourself:
For income protection advice, get in touch with the team at Bigmores.
A whole-of-life policy functions identically to level term assurance, however the policy term is open-ended, rather than a defined number of years. As a result, whole-of-life policies have far higher premiums, but by virtue of the term being indefinite they can be used to address specific needs such as inheritance tax planning if placed in trust.
Business protection could help your business to continue to trade should a key person or the business owner die or become terminally / critically ill. Proceeds from the policy could help ensure that key individuals are replaced, corporate debt is protected and shares from the deceased partner’s/director’s estate are purchased.
Life protection for individuals via a business work in a similar manner to life protection in a personal environment with ‘Whole of Life’, term protection and serious illness cover. These can come in the way of group life schemes, to offer all employees a certain level of cover.
A Relevant Life plan is a tax-efficient manner of providing individual death in service benefits for your employees, including company directors. Relevant Life plans are similar to most other types of life cover except they aim to provide a tax efficient benefit provided by an employer for an employee. Therefore, the employee does not pay income tax or national insurance on the premiums – for a higher or additional rate taxpayer, this can be a significant savings. The employer also benefits through claiming tax relief on the premiums as part of the employees remuneration. A Relevant Life Plan is designed to be written in a trust at outset, with the employee’s family and dependants as beneficiaries.
For more detail on personal protection products and the coverage each one offers, please download our Mini Guide to Personal Protections. Or if you would like to talk through the options, please get in touch with our team.
Our team of experienced mortgage & protection advisers will find the right product for you and guide you through the whole process.
Input your search keywords and press Enter.
