Mortgage Insurance stuff!

Willspireite

Hi,

Apologies if this is in the wrong thread ... wasn't sure if it went here, or in insurance like ... hopefully here's okay!!

Got a mortagage for our house a couple of years back, happy enough with it, so no problems there ... thing is we arranged it through a friend who's a broker and he arranged Building, Contents, Life Ins etc for us, as I had NO idea at all

Having looked over some stuff I'm feelin a bit more confident and so have switched Buildings and Content this year, halving the amount we pay, getting free travel insurance sent too and getting cashback on Greasypalm! :beer:

Thing is I've some other policies that I'm wondering about and was wondering about help!

One policy is with Liverpool Victoria, costing £17.36, it's for income protection ... do I need this ... or is it a safeguard? My job is secure enough and if anything does go wrong, the job ends, we'd simply sell up and move to Canada where my wife is from early ... as we're planning to do that in a few years anyway!

The other is from Scottish Provident and is Self Assurance Policy costing £19.14 a month. I believe this is vital, as the mortgage requires this ... but can I switch? It seems a bit high compared to some searches I did using Martin's tips in the forum.

Final bit ... the house deeds are in my name only, as my wife was away at a critical time in the process, so we raced ahead with just my signature. She also has a self assurance policy for £16.12 a month. We had planned to switch the deeds to joint names, however as we're moving in the next two years we decided the legal costs of this would be better spent paying off more of the mortgage ... soooooo, is this self assurance policy really worthwhile?

Thanks for help! :j

MortgageMamma

Why dont you just take further advice from your mate who is a broker? at least then it will be indemnified advice, you can explain your concerns and he can explain the reasoning behind the policies. I think if you get a good financial adviser you should stick with them - buying insurance products off the shelf is not advisable due to their complexity in nature, particularly income protection and criticial illness

Willspireite

Cheers for advice ... but I've lost contact with the mate unfortuanyely, or else I would give him a shout ... we'd both moved, phones changed etc so can't get back in touch.

Would the critical illness be essential to a mortgage? Or is there to protect the mortgage-ee?

cattie

Critical illness insurance is to protect you should you become unable to work through any of the stated illnesses or disabilities on the policy documents.

Is your policy critical illness only or an income protection policy/permanent health that covers you for ill health also as opposed to a critical illness?

I'm in favor of income protection policies/permanent health as you never know what is around the corner & they can be worth every penny should you ever have cause to make a claim.

Willspireite

I think it's an ill health one too Cattie.

I agree about protection, but if anything did go belly up with the job then it would simply be a case of sell up and emigrate early, like we intend to do in 2 years time anyway.

I'm just checking cos if it wouldn't be essential, and i know when we move to Canada I will DEF have it out there (or the equiv), but if it isn't essential at the minute we'd happily bag the £17/month ... £204/year instead.

Think MM's right about checking things out re:life assurance ... anyone got any places they'd recommend for that? As I said in previous message, a mate sorted it all at time so I'm fairly clueless unfortunately !

Thanks folks

JoeK_3

Willspireite wrote: »

I think it's an ill health one too Cattie.

I agree about protection, but if anything did go belly up with the job then it would simply be a case of sell up and emigrate early, like we intend to do in 2 years time anyway.

I'm just checking cos if it wouldn't be essential, and i know when we move to Canada I will DEF have it out there (or the equiv), but if it isn't essential at the minute we'd happily bag the £17/month ... £204/year instead.

Think MM's right about checking things out re:life assurance ... anyone got any places they'd recommend for that? As I said in previous message, a mate sorted it all at time so I'm fairly clueless unfortunately !

Thanks folks

Your ex-mortgage broker appears to have done a reasonable job in arranging some mortgage protection for you.

Normally a mortgage is protected against the following:

1) Death of either partner - This ensures that you do NOT leave a debt to each other

2) Critical Illness - this ensures that you can pay the mortgage off in the event of a major illness.

3) Accident and Sickness - Income coming in to pay the mortgage monthly payment.

4) Unemployment Insurance - Income coming in to pay the mortgage monthly payment in the event of redundancy.

Have a good read about the policies that you have got and satisfy yourself with what they cover and how they may help your circumstances.

You really need to speak to an independent adviser to do comparisons about the best prices but do remember that cheapest does not always means the best.

JoeK