Protection Advice
There are many methods of providing personal, family or mortgage protection. Some are sensible and others less so. We often discover that clients have been sold next to useless plans often by banks or door-to-door sales forces.
Advice is needed to ensure that you are protected no more and no less than you need.
Examples of the types of plan available and what they aim to do.
Life Assurance | This is the simplest type of protection as it pays out a tax-free amount on death. These plans can be taken out for a set number of years i.e. 10 years, 25 years or can be arranged on a whole life basis. This means that it will pay out one day regardless of when you die. A life assurance can be arranged to pay out a lump sum or an income. It can be level, increasing to combat inflation or decreasing to fit around a repayment mortgage. |
Income Protection | If illness or injury stops you being able to work and causes your income to stop it means that all future plans - retirement, house moving, school fees, etc. - have been disrupted or ruined. An income protection plan provides a tax-free income until you are able to return to work or, if you are unable to resume working, to your retirement age |
Critical Illness | This relatively new type of protection. It provides a tax-free lump sum or income if you are diagnosed with one of thirty or so critical illnesses. These plans have proved extremely popular as they have hit a chord with the public, particularly those with mortgages. |
PPI & MPPI Plans | Payment Protection Insurance and Mortgage Payment Protection Insurance has been sold by the bucket-load over the past fifteen years. Generally it has been sold by the banks and building societies to unsuspecting consumers on the basis that it covers sickness and redundancy. You may detect a note of concern within these words and this is because, in a great many instances, these plans have been sold incorrectly. They have been sold to the self-employed and part-timers, neither of whom can be made redundant. If sickness is the worry then an income protection plan is likely to be better value. |
So Why Should I Take Advice? | Many people would suggest that choosing the right protection is simple. Some believe that it can be done by searching the Internet, others by popping in to the nearest bank. The reality is that specialist independent advice is needed. Specialist, because these plans (particularly the income protection and critical illness versions) are complex. Independent, because no one company offers the 'best' or the cheapest. If you think cheapest is best then here is my challenge, show me where you parked your Kia... |
Highclere Financial Services are independent financial advisers (IFA) and are authorised by the Financial Services Authority (FSA no. 148208)
We are independent of any insurance company or mortgage provider which means we work on your behalf providing an unbiased advice and, where appropriate, searching for the best value products available.
Highclere Financial Services was established in 1991 and has earned a reputation for high quality advice with an emphasis on life assurance and health insurance protection as well as mortgage advice.
Prior to forming Highclere Financial Services Senior Partner Alan Lakey worked for thirteen years within other advisory firms and insurance companies