Completely confused as to what level of cover we need?!

MrsGSR

I'm going through mine and DH's insurances.
We have
Mortgage life insurance
Level term insurance
Life style protector (from Nationwide which they no longer sell)
Home insurance

We pay in total £124 a month in insurances.
Now these were taken out when we remorgaged two years ago, at that time I had just given birth to our second child so was a bit bleury eyed during the meetings and just trusted my husband with it.
Since taking on the accounts last year i found we had two identical policies so I cancelled one. (DH obviously overlooked this) and now I am baffled as to what we actually need!
Do we need both mortgage life insurance and level term insurance?

Do we need the lifestyle protector?

Really hope someone can help me!

Thanks:)

InsideInsurance

Take the Home insurance out of the equation as it is irrelevant to the picture.

Potentially you need both mortgage and level life cover if you want to have both the mortgage paid off in full plus a set sum after it. If you arent worried about one or the other then you could drop one. You could just have level and realise that how much you get post mortgage will change over time.

Really, get yourself down to an IFA or Protection Broker with all the documents that you have and they can do a proper assessment of what you have, what you need and if there are better offers available

MrsGSR

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Take the Home insurance out of the equation as it is irrelevant to the picture.

Potentially you need both mortgage and level life cover if you want to have both the mortgage paid off in full plus a set sum after it. If you arent worried about one or the other then you could drop one. You could just have level and realise that how much you get post mortgage will change over time.

Really, get yourself down to an IFA or Protection Broker with all the documents that you have and they can do a proper assessment of what you have, what you need and if there are better offers available

Thanks ever so much for your reply.
I've been reading on this website that seems to have made it a little clearer for me but I don't know about this lifestyle protecter, we did get pretty much talked into it!

InsideInsurance

MrsGSR wrote: »

Thanks ever so much for your reply.
I've been reading on this website that seems to have made it a little clearer for me but I don't know about this lifestyle protecter, we did get pretty much talked into it!

I dont know what it is off hand. I am guessing it is an ASU product which is the budget version of income protection.

If this is the case then PHI is the full fat version and gives you much better protection but is reflected in the cost.

The fact you bought it from a bank means it is almost certainly over priced and even if you decide ASU is better for you than PHI then you can probably buy better cover for less elsewhere

MrsGSR

InsideInsurance wrote: »

I dont know what it is off hand. I am guessing it is an ASU product which is the budget version of income protection.

If this is the case then PHI is the full fat version and gives you much better protection but is reflected in the cost.

The fact you bought it from a bank means it is almost certainly over priced and even if you decide ASU is better for you than PHI then you can probably buy better cover for less elsewhere

Ah right yes that makes a lot of sense.
I will investigate, thank you so much for your replies, very helpful.

cte1111

I would also check what insurance cover either you or your husband get from work, e.g. my husband has three times his annual salary of life insurance as part of his salary package.

It looks like the lifestyle protector includes some level of accident, sickness and unemployment insurance. It may be that you were mis-sold this, perhaps best to clarify this and whether it is worth claiming (template letters and loads of help on here about this).

As to what you need - think about what you would need financially if your husband was to die, and the same if it was you to go. Would you just want your mortgage paid off or would you need extra on top? No-one can decide that for you. Like most insurance products, it pays to shop around. The benefits of the cover will vary, so check the exclusions and try and read the small print.

MrsGSR

cte1111 wrote: »

I would also check what insurance cover either you or your husband get from work, e.g. my husband has three times his annual salary of life insurance as part of his salary package.

It looks like the lifestyle protector includes some level of accident, sickness and unemployment insurance. It may be that you were mis-sold this, perhaps best to clarify this and whether it is worth claiming (template letters and loads of help on here about this).

As to what you need - think about what you would need financially if your husband was to die, and the same if it was you to go. Would you just want your mortgage paid off or would you need extra on top? No-one can decide that for you. Like most insurance products, it pays to shop around. The benefits of the cover will vary, so check the exclusions and try and read the small print.

Hi, thanks for your reply. Yes we have checked our work cover and I can get life insurance through my work for a lot less than what we are paying now but i can't help thinking that surely I am missing something!

Good point, I will investigate. Alarm bells ring at the fact they don't sell it anymore and when i called them I couldn't get through to anyone who could say why they stopped selling it.

Thanks for your advice.

InsideInsurance

cte1111 wrote: »

It looks like the lifestyle protector includes some level of accident, sickness and unemployment insurance. It may be that you were mis-sold this, perhaps best to clarify this and whether it is worth claiming (template letters and loads of help on here about this).

Miss selling of stand alone ASU or MPPI is very rare, especially as it is normally on a non-advised sales basis.

Just because PPI is a form of ASU doesnt mean that every form of ASU is automatically miss sold.