help me reduce a bill

leni

We currently have a Total Mortgage Protection Plan with Halifax that we took out when we bought the house in March 2003. Our mortgage is also with Halifax and as we were niave 21 year olds we didn't think to look around.

We currently pay £46.73 per month which breaksdown into...

£29.90 Mortgage Repayments benefit
£8.71 Live Cover benefit
£14.00 Critical Illness benefit
£5.88 DISCOUNT

This covers us for 125% of monthly mortgage payment, split equally
£65k Life Cover
£65k Critical Illness Cover

it's on a 60 day referral if we get made unemployed.

Are we paying over the odds?
Is it cheaper to get the life cover seperate?
Please advise!

mrs_mug_2

I'm not sure - you need to speak to an IFA really. We had various policies with Halifax and saved around £30 a month by switching. That was a couple of years ago now though, I have a feeling they may be more competitive these days.

Emmzi

Do you need life cover at all? or do either of you get cover with work? (A lot of companies do 4x salary death in service cover)

leni

OH gets Life Cover - I work for a charity and querying maternity pay has been a struggle!

I had a chat with OH last night and it seems we both agree that we should drop the Mortgage Repayments benefit because the mortgage will always be our first priority to if we loose work - I'd go work anywhere to pay the bills!:o

mintymoneysaver

I'm sure there is an article by Martin somewhere on this site about finding mortgage repayment cheaper, I'll try and find it....


found it.....
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/viewnews.cgi?newsid1076369501,83567,


hope that helps.

wannabedebtfree_2

I would definately shop around for quotes.

I used to work with an IFA, and I'm sure he would not recommend cancelling mortgage protection, (not because he wold have wanted the sale, but on a personal level) you say that you would work anywhere as long as the mortgage got paid, but a member of my family suffered very sudden kidney failure, no warning signs, just literally got rushed into hospital and has been on dialysis ever since, awaiting a transplant, and if he hadn't had mortgage protection they would have been stuffed!!

His wife could have got a full time job, but they have a baby, so it would have been difficult at first for him to look after her (he's much better now, and is back working part time) so the fact that their mortgage was getting paid every month (and in fact the mortgage has now been paid in full thanks to critical illness cover) was a huge weight off their shoulders.

The point I'm trying to make, and getting a bit 'waffley' about is, you are thinking of the scenario that if you got made redundant, you would work anywhere, but you should think about what would happen if one of you was off long term sick, and you only had 1 wage coming in, could you still afford to eat if your mortgage was your top priority, followed by other household bills?(my partner had 8 months off work for a back injury, we don't have a mortgage but we had a loan, that thankfully had protection, and was paid without fail for the 8 months, we would never have found the money out of our income support and my wages)

Look for cheaper quotes, and think very carefully before cancelling it altogether.

xxxx