Cavendish online or moneyworld

Flow2010

I am in the process of possibly buying life/critical illness cover. I would be grateful if anyone who has used Cavendish online or moneworld would be able to let me know if it was a straight forward experience? Thank you in advance

jonny2510

Flow2010 wrote: »

... I would be grateful if anyone who has used Cavendish online or moneworld would be able to let me know if it was a straight forward experience? ...

I'd second that request ^

I'm looking to purchase life assurance (& possibly family income protection). I've done some reading on here, and a lot of people seem to recommend seeking financial advice - rather than "doing it yourself"

I've also read Martin's article, and it seems to make sense in that if I'm dead (providing I've disclosed EVERYTHING) that there should be no contesting it, so they should pay out.

Getting quotes at Moneyworld seem to be around 40-50% cheaper than my mortgage advisor too!

Or am I missing something???

stephenni1971

jonny2510 wrote: »

I'd second that request ^

I'm looking to purchase life assurance (& possibly family income protection). I've done some reading on here, and a lot of people seem to recommend seeking financial advice - rather than "doing it yourself"

I've also read Martin's article, and it seems to make sense in that if I'm dead (providing I've disclosed EVERYTHING) that there should be no contesting it, so they should pay out.

Getting quotes at Moneyworld seem to be around 40-50% cheaper than my mortgage advisor too!

Or am I missing something???

But it yourself and you have little to no consumer protection.

Are you happy that you know whether your premiums are guaranteed, renewable, reviewable?

Will you choose to have your FIB linked to RPI and if so from outset of from point of claim?

Should you have it in trust?

Your main choice is - do I talk to someone who is an expert and who will advise which product/provider/cover I should have OR do you do it yourself and leave open the possibility of choosing the wrong cover.

I personally have had to have a very difficult conversation with a client whose wife had cancer and thought they had cover on a self bought policy - they had terminal illness cover not CIC so he thought they were getting 100k and they got nothing...

kingstreet

Could not agree more with Stephen.

I'm going to be called "Mr Trust" on here the way I go on, but anyone buying life cover for family protection who doesn't at least consider writing it in trust is plain daft.

It ensures your death benefit goes where you want it to go
It ensures it can be paid out quickly without need for probate
It ensures the payment is not via your estate so it will not cause a tax liability.

Lots more issues to consider, not just trusts.

Please, please, please get advice. You could cause your family more grief, just when they are trying to cope with losing you!

jonny2510

Many thanks for your response Stephenni

stephenni1971 wrote: »

But it yourself and you have little to no consumer protection.

How much more "real" protection would I have after taking advice?

From what experience I've had with mortgage and financial advisers, everything is written and signed off to justify decisions made, and cover people's backs in the event of a discrepancy. (I'm really not saying there's anything wrong with this - documenting decisions is a good/sensible thing, and makes sense).

stephenni1971 wrote: »

Are you happy that you know whether your premiums are guaranteed, renewable, reviewable?

In the search I selected "guaranteed", in the results it was listed as guaranteed. I'm not sure what more, a mortgage advisor saying "it's guaranteed" will offer me. I either have to take the word of the site, or the mortgage advisor (along with reading/understanding what I can of the documentation).

stephenni1971 wrote: »

Will you choose to have your FIB linked to RPI and if so from outset of from point of claim?

Nope. I understand why this is necessary/important, but as time goes on, there'll be more of a lump sum leftover (because of there being less mortgage to pay off) which should go towards covering this. RPI linked would certainly be better - though I have a limited budget!!!

stephenni1971 wrote: »

Should you have it in trust?

I believe I should - and am not really sure about much more than that! I would obviously need to look to do more research before organising/arranging anything!

stephenni1971 wrote: »

Your main choice is - do I talk to someone who is an expert and who will advise which product/provider/cover I should have OR do you do it yourself and leave open the possibility of choosing the wrong cover.

I do realise that a Independent Financial Advisor/Independent Mortgage Advisor will know more about this than me, and I truly do respect the knowledge that they have (above and beyond what I know). The above is not a criticism in any way of the experts, but more me addressing each of your points (and possibly self justifying the decision I've come to so far!)

It's more a case of trying to get the cover I require within the budget I have, rather than trying to save a few pennies. I realise I could get it (drastically) wrong, though feel that going with professional advice will likely only get me half the cover I need.

Again, my above responses aren't criticism - and I'd love to hear any further comments you have.

jonny2510

kingstreet wrote: »

...but anyone buying life cover for family protection who doesn't at least consider writing it in trust is plain daft.

With regards to a trust (I may expose my ignorance of knowledge about trusts here - I haven't researched this element yet), what happens if the beneficiary of the trust were to die too (i.e. we both die in a car crash)?

Would it automatically go to our child/children? (especially with it not being part of the estate)

kingstreet

jonny - you seem to think the only option is cheap premiums online or expensive premiums from an adviser.

You can talk to advisers, get advice and help with trusts etc and ask them to rebate some of the commission into lowering the premiums for you.

Let me ask you a favour. Give me the details one one of the quotes you've got and I'll tell you the normal premium and the commission "normally" paid and see if I can give you a working example of what I mean.

If you are familiar with the idea of independent mortgage advice, it works in a similar way. You agree to a fee. The adviser finds you a mortgage which pays him a commission. He agrees to pay you the commission instead, so you know you are getting proper unbiased advice.

kingstreet

jonny2510 wrote: »

With regards to a trust (I may expose my ignorance of knowledge about trusts here - I haven't researched this element yet), what happens if the beneficiary of the trust were to die too (i.e. we both die in a car crash)?

Would it automatically go to our child/children? (especially with it not being part of the estate)

A discretionary trust has a series of default beneficiaries, rather than one named beneficiary.

So it may be spouse, followed by children and so on.

stephenni1971

Jonny,

I can understand you have reservations about going down the advised route.

Although Kingstreet is a mortgage adviser he seems a decent bloke on here so I hope he doesn't take offence but...

You need to make sure your mortgage adviser is whole of market for one.

Many will be tied to a single insurer or a small panel so you may not be getting much in the way of options if you are getting quotes.

For critical illness cover, there can be huge differences between providers. Aviva for example can be cheap but have one of the poorest set of conditions covered - so a false economy in my opinion.

I have seen ( much more in the last few years ) many people steered towards massive amounts of insurance cover by mortgage brokers as they earn much more from this than the actual mortgage. I am not saying everyone does it but it happens regularly. Often they will just be concerned with cover for the mortgage and have little interest in taking a 'bigger picture' look at your whole circumstances and including personal and family as well as mortgage protection.

There are some unscrupulous IFAs out there too, don't get me wrong, but you should take into account some of the things I am saying - if you are not confident about the quotes you are getting - talk to someone else...

kingstreet

No offence taken here!

I agree with most, if not all of what you say.

In my experience, mortgage advisers right up to whole market level can mask their insurance & protection provision giving the impression of a similar standard of advice when they are at worst tied to one provider, or multi-tied to a panel.

My background is broker consultancy and IFA before I fell into mortgages, so I've always been more of a technician than a salesman. It's one of the reasons I'm always harping on about trusts!

jonny2510

Many thanks for the responses (and sorry for the thread hijack Flow2010!).

For the record, the mortgage advisor is whole of market. And I'm not looking to get critical illness cover.

I wasn't going to mention this earlier, though I have felt that I have been steered towards multiple products by my current advisor (decreasing term cover + level term + FIB + sickness), which I guess is one of the reasons I feel put off paying extra for advice that may not necessarily be in my best interest (but will make my advisor more money). This is especially true seeing as I mentioned all along that I wasn't keen on decreasing term cover (I have mortgage overpayment habit!). I'm certainly quite cynical when it comes to these things.

One thing that also (possibly subconsciously) puts me off paying extra for advice, is that my current life policy was recommended by a previous mortgage advisor who didn't even mention writing it in trust!!!!

Getting quotes now from my current mortgage advisor (I'm five years older and need double the cover) are looking to cost the same (as I am paying now) - I suspect this first advisor at least wasn't whole of market.

I don't know if it makes any difference (or changes your recommendations, that I get advice), but I just want to ensure that if I die, the mortgage (& any other debts) get paid off, leaving a small lump sum leftover for emergencies [using the level term cover], and that my wife gets a monthly payment of £xxx each month thereafter (for the rest of the term specified) to look after her and my child/children [using the FIB].