Help! Life and critcal cover confusion!

katesagogo

Hi,

I need help! 3 years ago we got our mortgage and insurance all sorted by a family friend financial advisor, because he was family we just let him get on with it but i am concerened that our Life assurance and critical illness cover is way too high!

Basically at the moment we are paying £33.81 for my husbands policy per month and £29.25 for mine (Life assurance)

And then my husband is paying £18.00 a month for critical illness! Altogether we shell out £81.06 a month!!!

Ive just been on the Cavendish website that Martin recommends and it looks like we could get all that for about £20 a month!

As its such a drop i am worried that we wouldnt be covered for the right things that our original poilcy covers. Ive read Martins advice but it still confuses me.

Basically if one of us pops our clogs we need the mortgage paying off (and maybe a one off payment? although we dont have kids yet) and then i was thinking of getting income protection rather that critical illness?

If someone could help that would be great!

kate
x

missile

Insurance is all about risk. What happens if you or OH loose your job, have an accident, get a terminal illness or die. Do you need / want and of course can you afford to insure against all of lives unfortunate events?

Never a good idea IMHO to use a personal friend as your IFA

dunstonh

Altogether we shell out £81.06 a month!!!

Why the exclamation marks? I know many paying hundreds.

Ive just been on the Cavendish website that Martin recommends and it looks like we could get all that for about £20 a month!

Not a chance. You are almost certainly not comparing like for like.

If the family friend was a tied agent, then you would expect around £20-£25pm more expensive than an IFA on full commission basis. However, nil commision basis wont take that down from £65 to £20. Not even close.

So, you are probably comparing budget CI against comprehensive or reviewable premiums (or yearly renewable term) against guaranteed or the very common error with DIY life assurance is that you have mistaken terminal illness cover to mean the same thing as critical insurance cover.

roguebrogue

Also remember that quotes you get online are subject to things like medical and occupational underwriting.

I for for a big assurance company and I get alot of calls where people say they had a quote for 10/20 pounds and want to know why their final premium is 30/40. 99% of the time it's because there's been a medical rating applied.