What Is Mortgage Protection Insurance in Leicester?

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Life Cover

Critical Illness Insurance

Income Protection

Accident, Sickness, Unemployment (ASU) Cover

Family Income Benefit

Mortgage Advice in Leicester & Surrounding Areas

Mortgage Protection Insurance is a term used to encompass various types of cover designed to protect borrowers from events that could severely impact their ability to maintain mortgage payments.

There are different variations, but when connected to a mortgage in Leicester, they are all there to provide peace of mind and usually fall into the following categories:

• Life Cover
• Critical Illness Insurance
• Income Protection
• Accident, Sickness, Unemployment (ASU) Cover
• Family Income Benefit

Life Cover

As a rule, if the policyholder dies within the term, then the sum assured should be enough to pay off the outstanding mortgage balance and ensure the borrower’s dependents get left with a debt they might not otherwise be able to manage.

Our mortgage advisors in Leicester can run through all the different types of Life Insurance in Leicester and recommend the most suitable plan for you.

Critical Illness Insurance

There’s a debate that says that life cover gets taken for the benefit of other people – i.e., your dependents – because sadly, you won’t be around to see any interest yourself.

However, these days, thanks to improvements in the sort of medical treatment available, many people now survive conditions that once might have been fatal.

Nevertheless, while undergoing what may be long spells of treatment and recovery, it could have a marked effect on your ability to meet your financial commitments. The decision has led to the development of Critical Illness Insurance.

Critical Illness Insurance works similarly to Life Assurance in that it is usually taken for a specific term of years and can have different options such as level/increasing etc.

It gets designed to pay out a lump sum and, like Life cover, for borrowers, it is typically taken on a decreasing term basis in line with the reduction of your mortgage balance.

The key is that the benefit gets paid if you fall victim to one of some specified critical illnesses and pays out whatever the long-term prognosis of that illness.

The type of illnesses covered vary from company to company, that’s why this type of insurance cannot be solely price-driven, and advice is highly recommended.

In practice, many companies will offer Life and Critical Illness Critical cover as a combined policy.

They would usually payout on the “first event,” i.e., whatever happens first – either death or a serious illness – the payout gets made. They can also get written on a single or joint life basis.

Income Protection

Whereas Life and Critical Illness cover to pay out a lump sum, “Income Protection” pays out a monthly amount designed to replace your wages in the event of you being unfit to work.

Unlike Critical Illness coverage, there are no restrictions on the illnesses or injuries covered, the only factor being whether they make you unsuitable to work.

There are, however, restrictions on how much you can cover and how quickly benefits would start to get paid.

Like Life and Critical Illness cover, these policies are underwritten based on your health and lifestyle at the time you apply.

All income protection policies get written on a single-life basis.

Accident, Sickness, Unemployment (ASU) Cover

Similar in many ways to Income Protection, these policies also cover you should you be made unemployed. Benefits are usually linked to your mortgage and other costs (rather than necessarily your wages) and would often be paid one month “in arrears” after a successful claim.

These policies get only underwritten at the time of an application rather than at the outset. Which can sometimes mean there can be some confusion/delay as to whether a claim would get met.

They are a useful safety net if you get made long-term unemployed, but be sure to check the details of how/when any unemployment benefits would get paid out, as it may be that you would have returned to work before any money becomes due.

Family Income Benefit

Probably the least common of the “mortgage protection” type policies but can often be valuable – particularly for those with young families.

The plans get taken to cover Life and/or Critical Illness and get underwritten on the application the same way we mentioned earlier.

However, unlike the traditional forms of policy, rather than pay out a lump sum, the cover would pay an annual or monthly income for the remainder of the term of the plan.

Thus it can replace the income of the primary breadwinner for several years, dependent upon a particular client’s circumstances and, because of this, would usually be written on a level or basis or an index-linked basis designed to keep up with inflation.

Summary

There’s an adage that says you can never have too much insurance. Indeed, many people have one or more of the different types of policy, and it would be wrong to think of Mortgage Protection Insurance as just an “either/or” choice.

However, in the real world, affordability plays a massive part, so it would be fantastic to cover yourself with Life Insurance in Leicester for every potential opportunity.

A mortgage broker in Leicester like us will sit down with you and tailor the type of cover to be the most suitable combination to your family’s priority and budget.

If you do take more than one type of policy, however, your advisor would usually place all the cover with one provider.

To save you the additional policy administration charges that individual policies carry but which get reduced when bringing all the systems under one plan.

Please give us a call or fill out our enquiry form to speak with one of our dedicated protection specialists.

Date Last Edited: December 6, 2023