Buildings and Contents Insurance

You need to consider two kinds of insurance for your home. Buildings insurance, which covers the structure of your property and any fixtures and fittings, and Contents insurance, which covers all the furniture, furnishings and personal possessions in your home. In fact, it covers the things you would take with you if you moved.

The sum insured for buildings insurance must be the full rebuilding cost of your property and the sum insured for contents insurance should represent the amount required to replace all your furnishings and possessions at current day prices. As well as covering you against a long list of 'risks' (including fires, subsidence, theft, flood and storm) both types of cover include an important 'liability' section. This can provide you with protection if you are sued by a third party alleging injury to themselves or damage to their property caused by you or some defect in your property.

We have access to a number of buildings and contents insurers and should be able to find a policy to suit your particular needs

Contact us to find out about our range of general insurance services today

Level term life insurance

Level term life insurance is sometimes known as Term Assurance or simply Life Insurance.

You can take this type of life insurance on your own, or with somebody else as a joint plan.

You choose the amount of cover you need and the length of the plan. The level of cover remains the same throughout the plan term and usually so do the premiums you pay. The plan has no cash-in value at any time.

Decreasing term life insurance

Decreasing term life insurance is sometimes known as Mortgage Life Insurance.

You can take this type of life insurance on your own, or with your partner as a joint plan.

Mortgage Life Insurance is designed specifically to protect a repayment (capital and interest) mortgage. The cash lump sum payable is designed to help pay off the outstanding balance of your mortgage.

You choose the amount of cover you need and the length of the plan. The premiums you pay usually remain the same throughout the plan term, however the cash lump sum payable decreases to reflect your decreasing mortgage loan. The plan has no cash-in value at any time.

Family Income Benefit

This cover operates in the same way as Level Term above. It differs in that the benefit is paid annually to you until the end of the policy term.

You can also increase your lump sum benefit in line with a chosen index or percentage if you decide to take out an indexation option. The plan has no cash-in value at any time.

Critical Illness Cover

Critical Illness Cover is an insurance plan that pays out a guaranteed cash sum if you're diagnosed as suffering from a specified critical illness, within the term of the plan. The plan has no cash-in value at any time.

Should you be unfortunate enough to suffer a critical illness, the last thing you'll want to be worrying about is money. Advances in medical science mean that the chances of surviving a critical illness are improving all the time. The cash sum you'd receive from a critical illness plan could help you through the recovery period.

You may have to reduce your working hours, need to pay for medical care or have to adapt your house to make your day-to-day life easier. A critical illness plan could help all of this and more.

Income protection

The chances of finding yourself out of work due to long-term illness are unfortunately all too high.

In this situation, income protection cover can help you replace the lost income by paying out a regular income benefit to help replace lost earnings and/or it can pay a regular pension contribution protection benefit.

Whether you're employed or self-employed, income protection cover can provide support and help you maintain your standard of living for as long as it takes to get fit enough to go back to work.

Accident, Sickness and Unemployment Insurance

Becoming unemployed can cause many problems, not least the fact that there simply may not be any money to pay the bills. Most people will agree that their home is their most important material possession, yet if mortgage payments cannot be made, the security of a home can be taken away.

You cannot rely on state help to cover your mortgage payments if you cannot work. There is no help for the first nine months of unemployment or disability for mortgages taken since October 1995. Existing borrowers only qualify for benefit if they qualify for Income Support.

You can buy cover to protect your mortgage payments if you have an accident or become ill and cannot work, if you become unemployed, or to provide full cover for accidents, sickness and unemployment. The terms and conditions under which you can claim differ with every policy, so you should always check them very carefully.

The Benefit period is the length of time you can claim monthly payments for, and these vary for each policy. You can select the time period you want to be covered (1 year, 2 years etc) but the longer you want the cover for, the more expensive the premiums will be.

There is also an Exclusion Period, sometimes known as an Excess period. This is the time you have to wait to start receiving benefits from the policy after you have become ill, had an accident or become unemployed. Again, this can vary from having no exclusion period to 30, 60 or 90 days. In some instances, this can be even longer.