Client Background
The client came to see me with 7 different policies. He had 3 joint life assurance and critical illness policies, a family income policy, and an income protection policy. The client had recently re-mortgaged his property and had a new 25 year mortgage term. He was self-employed and also needed insurance to cover him if he couldn’t work due to illness.
Work Carried Out
With life and critical illness policies you usually arrange cover for the mortgage to match the repayment term and the amount of the mortgage. None of the policies the client had were the right ‘shape’. Although he had sufficient cover for the mortgage, all of the policies had a term that was 10 years too short to cover the full mortgage period. It was not possible to make the necessary changes to the existing policies, so the only option was to find a new policy that could give the right size and shape of cover and then cancel the existing policies.
In all, 4 policies were replaced with one that gave exactly the right level of cover for the right length of time, and also managed to save £55 per month in premiums.
A Family Income Policy is designed to give the surviving spouse an income to cover monthly expenditure. The level of cover looked quite high but we decided to keep the policy running as the premium looked good relative to taking out a new policy.
Income Protection
With the Income Protection policy, the level of cover and term were both fine. However the premium seemed very expensive. Comparing with other provider’s policies offering the same features and options, we were able to find a similar policy for half the cost in premiums. We therefore took out a new policy at the lower premium level and cancelled the existing policy. This saved the client £75 pm.
Value to the Client
The client now has exactly the right policies in place for his current circumstances He has peace of mind that should anything happen to him his wife will be able to cope financially, and that if he is unable to work due to illness he will be able to cover his outgoings every month, including his mortgage payments. In total, we managed to save the client £150pm by replacing a number of old or expensive policies with new ones that gave the required level and term of cover.