Have you ever considered the need for accident, sickness and unemployment insurance? Perhaps surprisingly, given the vast amount of people who have mortgages or other loans, very few give much consideration to whether or not they’d be able to keep up the repayments on their house if they suddenly found themselves out of work or how they’d manage to pay for everyday costs such as fuel, food and other costs.
While some of us would be covered by state-funded financial assistance packages, many wouldn’t, and the stress of looming debts – and, as a worst-case scenario, repossession of their home and property by the bank – is a burden that can seem so much worse when you find yourself without a steady income as a result of involuntary redundancy or due to becoming unable to work because of accident or ongoing illness. Accident, sickness and redundancy insurance is a package designed to help at all times, but can be particularly beneficial in these uncertain times.
Known as ASU insurance for short, for a small payment per month – usually just a few pounds per hundred pounds of cover – you can be secure in the knowledge that your mortgage and loan repayments, and your other essential bills, will not spiral out of control should you find yourself made involuntarily redundant or too ill to work.
Should this happen, then your payment protection insurance policy (which is the more generic name for ASU insurance) will provide you with a tax free monthly sum which can help you through a difficult financial time. These policies often cover you for between one and two years, which is usually more than enough time to help you get back on your feet or find a new job, and it can be a great boost to those who don’t have savings to rely on or a partner bringing in an income.
A typical accident, sickness and insurance policy provides all round comprehensive cover against the unexpected. However, you can elect to split the package and have either accident sickness insurance only or unemployment insurance only.
Redundancy insurance
If you find yourself unable to work for reasons out of your control, redundancy cover can be a great way to save yourself from unnecessary financial worry, and instead to focus on getting back into employment while your mortgage fees are taken care of.
As discussed before, a redundancy protection policy is a form of payment protection insurance, and as such causes some confusion for a lot of potential buyers. Many people confuse payment protection insurance with income protection insurance. While the two services may have similar features, the details of each are very different.
Payment protection insurance (PPI) aims to provide a tax free sum for a set period of time, usually no more than two years, against involuntary redundancy and/or illness and injury (depending on which policy you choose). It does not have to be debt specific and can also just provide a general income with a product called income payment protection insurance cover.
Income protection insurance, on the other hand, does not protect against redundancy at all, whether voluntary or involuntary, and will only pay out in case of a medical reason to be off work. However, the policy will pay out for a much longer period of time: either until you’re better, until your chosen policy expires or (in extreme cases) until retirement age. Understanding the difference between these services may be crucial in determining which to choose, and knowing which type of cover you’re applying for could save you a great deal of money in the future. If you want unemployment cover, you need to be looking at payment protection insurance policies.
Accident insurance
Just as unemployment protection policies provide a monthly income to replace yours should you lose yours due to involuntary redundancy, so will an accident and sickness insurance policy in the case that you become unable to work due to incapacity.
Again, accident insurance and sickness insurance should not be confused with an income protection insurance policy. The policy we are describing here offers short to medium term protection until you are back on your feet. If you want longer term cover or protection against the ramifications of having a serious illness that may prevent you from returning to work for good, then you may wish to look at a critical illness insurance policy or income protection insurance cover.
Which cover is right for me?
It is your decision as to whether you buy just unemployment cover or lump it together with an accident and sickness element too and vice versa. It all depends on your own personal circumstances. Maybe your employer has a sick pay scheme that would see you still cope financially even if you were off work for a while due to sickness. In this case you may feel that you would only need redundancy insurance.
On the other hand, unemployment may not be a worry for you and you just wish to protect yourself against the chance that you could fall sick for a long period of time or have an accident which would require a long recovery period.
Weigh up all your options and check with your employer to see what protection you have in any of these events, then choose what you need from there. Do remember that unemployment and incapacity cover could be a lifeline if you were to lose your income. While we do not like to consider the fact that we could suffer from accident or sickness it can happen. In the worst case scenario it could mean you would be unable to work for several months. During this time you would still have to maintain your loan, mortgage or essential repayments each month. Life could also become stressful if you should lose your monthly income due to redundancy. With payment protection behind you life could be a great deal easier to manage.
Cheap income protection
The good thing about payment protection insurance policies / accident, sickness and unemployment policies is that these allow you a way of getting cheap income protection. When borrowing with the high street lender they will usually try to get you to take out protection in with a loan, mortgage or other borrowing.
However if you choose to shop around and take out the protection independently you can often make some great savings on the cost of the premiums. By choosing an independent provider for cover you can make savings of up to 40-80% depending on the type of cover you take. This figure is compared to the cost of the same or similar policies on the high street.
Do not be fooled by the high street banks and lenders who may force you in to buying one of their own accident, sickness and insurance policies. It is not compulsory to buy the insurance from them and you are free to shop around for the cover. In most cases this will see you secure a much better deal. After all, you wouldn’t buy a new television without first shopping around and buying payment protection insurance is no different.
When would I be able to claim on the policy?
How long you need to wait before making your claim on your accident, sickness and unemployment cover would depend on the provider in question as policy features and benefits can vary. Some providers ask that you defer from putting in your claim until the 30th day of unemployment or incapacity has passed. With others it could be up to as much as the 90th day before you can make a claim on the policy.
This is quite an important policy feature to consider when choosing your cover as the longer you have to wait for the policy payments to kick in, the longer you will be without an income. So, for example, say you chose a policy that started 90 days after unemployment or incapacity – that would mean 90 days’ without an income at all and you would forced to live off your savings, or, in the event of redundancy, your severance pay, if you got any.
Also, note that some providers will very generously back date the benefit to the very first day of your unemployment or from you being incapacitated. This is a great benefit to have, so it is worth looking at policies that offer this feature as standard.
How long will I receive benefits for?
Once you have claimed successfully on your accident and redundancy insurance and begun to receive an income you would then be eligible to receive a regular, fixed sum each month you remained unemployed or incapacitated for between 12 and 24 months. This would be dependent on the provider you had chosen to take your protection with, some providers might offer you the choice of term.
The benefits of a policy
Of course one of the biggest benefits to taking out unemployment and incapacity cover is that you would have an income towards servicing your chosen repayments or just to help pay for your day to day costs. This would allow you to concentrate on making a full recovery and getting back to your own job. In the case of unemployment it also allows you time to brush up on your interview techniques, attend them and ultimately secure yourself another job.
There are three different variants of payment protection insurance cover. These are mortgage payment protection insurance, loan payment protection insurance and income payment protection insurance (which is not to be confused with the income protection insurance we mentioned earlier on in this article).
Both mortgage protection and loan protection insurance policies are debt specific while income payment protection insurance is not. We discuss their slight differences below.
Mortgage payment protection insurance does what it says – it would of course protect your mortgage repayments each month in the event of you losing your income due to one of the covered events. As you would have a substantial income coming in to help you to keep up to date with your mortgage repayments this will help you to avoid mortgage arrears. If you found yourself in arrears and could not repay them you would be at risk of losing your home to the lender. You may also hear it called mortgage protection insurance; mortgage insurance; mortgage cover; or MPPI.
Loan cover - also called loan insurance, loan payment cover and loan payment protection insurance - would help you to maintain your loan repayments, which can also help keep your credit file from being affected. If you fall behind on your loan repayments you could be taken to court by the lender and gain a County Court Judgement. This can affect any future lending you may want.
Income payment protection insurance can be taken as unemployment and incapacity cover and would give you an income allowing you to maintain any essential repayments. As this is not a debt specific policy, you can use the money as you wish, from paying for groceries to your rent /mortgage or fuel costs. In a nutshell, this is a more versatile form of protection as you would not be limited to just protecting one repayment but would have the freedom of being able to service any bills you needed to keep on top of. You may hear it also referred to as income cover, income payment cover or income insurance.
So, hopefully the benefits of these policies is clear. As a result of all these factors discussed – the financial aid in case you lose your job; the increased peace of mind you can get from knowing that your repayments are taken care of in case of redundancy; and the general sense of security that comes from knowing you’re insured – it’s easy to see why more and more people are choosing to take out redundancy cover and accident and sickness insurance, to safeguard their borrowings against events beyond their control.