Critical illness and income protection cover question

julius_2

Hi,

I am a self employed person. I run an internet business and am looking for protection to cover against critical illness in case I cannot work, however, all of the policies I have found do not cover for the above plus inability to work through accident.

I don't really want to buy critical illness plus income protection as they overlap but don't want to run the risk of buying just the critical illness which leaves me uninsured incase of scenarios like car crashes.

Can anyone recommend an insurance policy which covers both, or failing that a good insurer for both types of policies?

Thanks
Julius

dunstonh

permanent health insurance is the key policy you need. Critical illness is the secondary policy. There is very little overlap.

julius_2

Many thanks for the reply. Does this permanent health insurance cover my outgoings like mortgage as income protection would?

Retired_I.F.A.

PHI is income protection but unlike the sickness accident and redundancy type policies it pays out the income till you retire.

dunstonh

it is proper income protection. Not this cut down mortgage protection rubbish. You can typically protect upto 66% of your income (govt wont allow 100%). Its underwritten at point of sale as well not at claim so they cant get out of paying up as they know your medical details from day one. Permanent in the name comes from the fact that the insurer cannot cancel the policy regardless of the number of times you claim.

From a protection point of view its a fantastic product. However, you dont see much mention of it unless you see an IFA because mortgage advisers tend not to have a PHI policy available to them, tied agents tend to have a basic income protection and lazy advisers tend to sell the easier products. Internet coverage is weak as well as its a product that falls under both investment classification (for regulation) and protection and many of these internet quote sites only hold protection licence.

julius_2

many thanks for your advice. It is greatly appreciated. It would appear that PHI is the product most suited to my requirements so I will start investigating it.

Have a good weekend all.

Regards,
Julius

Thomas_Crown

The term 'Permanent Health Insurance' seems to have been replaced by 'Income Proection Policies'. I took out PHI with General Accident in 1991 & after a couple of mergers the policy is now administered by Norwich Union who always refer to my 'Income Protection Policy' in correspondence.

dunstonh

Marketing men dont like the term permanent health insurance. Historically, if you mention PHI with no explanation, consumers typically think of private medical insurance. So, they call it income protection.

Just like banks often refer to fixed term deposits as bonds.

it makes it confusing as hell as you have different products of the same name but there you go.