Life Assurance and Critical Illness

Life Assurance
Life insurance is a fundamental part of a sound financial plan and helps to ensure that your family and loved ones are protected against financial difficulties in the event of a premature death.

With a policy in place today, you can:

• provide security for your family
• pay off your mortgage & debts
• take care of your estate planning needs
• look at other retirement savings/income vehicles
• have a lump sum to allow your dependants' lifestyle to continue

There are some important things to consider, when you are buying life insurance:

• Before purchasing a life insurance policy, you should consider your financial situation and the standard of living you want to maintain for your dependants or survivors. For example, who will be responsible for your final medical bills and funeral costs? Could your family manage financially or would they have to relocate? Will there be adequate funds for future or ongoing expenses such as child care, mortgage payments or school?
• You should re-evaluate your life insurance policies annually or whenever you experience a major life event such as marriage, divorce, the birth or adoption of a child, or purchase of a major item such as a house or business. We recommend that this is discussed at your fee-free financial review.

There are many choices when it comes to life insurance. With the help of one of MIA’s financial professionals you can develop a complete plan that will protect you and your family. We only recommend products from the best companies which are suitable for your own lifestyle, and as we can offer products from the whole market place, we can shop around for the best terms available.

As people are generally living longer, you may be suprised how much the cost of life assurance has reduced in recent years and it may be worth reviewing your policies to see if you can get a cheaper quote for your existing arrangements.

Income Protection

Have you considered how you would look after yourself or your family if you were unable to work due to illness? Although NHS employers provide generous sick pay terms and the NHS Pension Scheme can pay an ill-health pension in the event of permanent disability, medical professionals need to make provision for an income in the event of long-term absence from work, due to illness or injury.

A permanent Health Insurance policy pays an income in the event that illness or injury prevents you from working for extended periods. When you commence your policy, you specify:

• How long you should be ill before your income would start
• What age you would like your cover to cease – normally your intended retirement age
• How much income you would like to be paid while ill.

Then, if you are unable to work for longer than the specified waiting period, your chosen level of income begins to be paid every month and ceases when you return to work. The level of income paid can usually be linked to inflation, in order to maintain its value in real terms.

Also, unlike less advanced income protection policies often linked to mortgages and other loans, cover does not cease at the end of a claim and so one policy can remain in place throughout a career and deal with a number of claims before expiring at retirement age.

Critical Illness
Have you considered how you would look after yourself or your family if you were unable to work due to illness? We are far more likely today, to survive illnesses that may have killed us a generation ago. While medical advancements have boosted our chances of recovering from a serious illness, sometimes illness can still mean that our lifestyle or way of working has to change.

One way of ensuring that you are financially secure should you fall victim to a serious illness is to take out critical illness insurance.

A critical illness policy is an insurance policy, which pays out a tax-free lump sum on diagnosis of a specified serious illness. The lump sum you receive is for you to use as you wish. Some policies will pay out an income instead of a lump sum.

If you consider that your critical insurance premiums could be the equivalent of the amount spent on a meal once a month, it makes sense to secure you and your family’s finances. You and your family will have lots to think about should you become ill - don’t let money be one of them.

MIA can assess what level of cover you need and recommend the best products from the whole market place.