mortgage-related insurance

1sttimehousebuyer

Hi,
I've just arranged my first mortgage, and am now looking for insurance. I am confused and I'd really appreciate any advice. I know I need buildings and contents insurance, but am unsure about other types of insurance.

I have no dependents, so life insurance is not crucial - basically I want to be covered if I get ill or am in an accident, so that my mortgage will still get paid.
I have seen 'critical illness' policies, but they seem very restricted to specific illnesses (eg. only covering permanent disability if it's by paralysis or by loss of limbs). My mortgage adviser suggested I also get 'income protection' cover, in case I am unable to work for reasons not covered by the critical illness cover. But, my employer gives me 6 months full pay and 6 months half pay sickness allowance already.

The thing is, I am not eligible for a lot of (most?) income protection schemes, because I work on repeated short-term contracts. This means that the redundancy part doesn't apply to me. My understanding is that there's no way I can insure myself against unemployment. However, if I get ill near the end of a contract, my employer will only pay sick pay for the remaining length of contract, so I really would like some type of health cover in addition to the critical illness plans.

Does anyone have any suggestions / information that would be relevant to my situation?
Thanks!

dunstonh

permanent health insurance (PHI) doesn't have any problem with short term contracts and given you current situation, it is quite probable that an accident sickness unemployment policy isn't right for you. It is possible that your adviser doesn't have access to a PHI policy and that is why they haven't mentioned it. (tied agents or low level authorised advisers dont always have the contract).

1sttimehousebuyer

Thanks Dunstonh, that's really helpful. I was getting confused about the names of all the different types of cover. Does PHI go by any other name? Is it sold by most insurance companies or mainly by the health insurance ones like BUPA?