Accident Sickness Unemployment Insurance Or ASU Insurance

By Simon Lance Burgess

Sometimes accident sickness unemployment insurance is termed ASU insurance. As the name would suggest it would protect against becoming unable to work after suffering an illness or accident and protect against unemployment by such as being made redundant.

There are different policies for different types of situations. Mortgage protection would cover the repayments of the mortgage. Loan protection would be able to protect any loan and credit card repayments you had to make. Income payment protection would allow you to continue paying your essential outgoings each month.

All policies would have the same basic rules. You pay a premium each month decided by your age and the amount you wish to protect each month. In the case of mortgage payment protection you can also choose whether just to cover against unemployment only or incapacity only to keep down the cost. Age based policies means that the younger generation can take now afford to protect their borrowings each month.

There are certain exclusions to be found in the small print of all payment protection cover. These have to be checked if you are to be certain that you would be able to claim on the cover. Once you have then you can check to see when the cover would begin and end. Payment protection usually starts to provide an income between the 30th and 90th day and would continue between 12 and 24 months. Some providers will also backdate to the first day of you being unable to work or of being unemployed.

Accident sickness unemployment insurance is essential if you have a mortgage to keep up with. By failing to maintain the repayments of the mortgage you are breaking the contract you signed and as such the lender can choose to repossess your home. While they do not do this if at all possible, not being able to agree with the lender on how you would catch up on what you owe, while at the same time missing more of your mortgage repayments means the lender will repossess. If you were to get behind on loan repayments and into debt then you could get a County Court Judgement against you and at the very least your credit rating would be affected and you would still have to make an agreement to repay the loan.

When you take out the loan or mortgage with the lender they will try to get you to take out accident sickness unemployment insurance. They charge way over the odds for the protection and bring in around £4 billion each year solely in profits from tagging on the insurance. Along with this often very little information is given regarding the policy you are taking on and in some cases in the past this has led to consumers taking out cover that they could not hope to claim against. There have been many problems with payment protection in the past but it can be a very worthwhile policy to have. It is also important to remember that the product does work providing you check to make sure it is right for your needs.

Simon Burgess is Managing Director of the award-winning British Insurance, a specialist provider of accident sickness unemployment insurance.