Losing your job is one of the most upsetting and stressful periods of your life. However there is more to it than just being out of work perhaps for the first time in your life, you also have to take into account the loss of income. You will have to face up to the fact that you have bills coming into the home that still have to be maintained each month and other than your redundancy money have nothing coming in. One way of protecting yourself is by considering one of the unemployment protection policies that a specialist in payment protection offers.
You are able to take out unemployment protection for mortgage and loan repayments and you can also take out a policy for your income in general. Which policy you choose to take out will depend on what you have to payout each month and your circumstances. They all take into account the fact of your age and how much you want to insure against when setting the premium. The premium will also vary with providers and standalone specialist providers can help you to make savings of up to 40% on protecting your mortgage and 80% for your loan repayments.
A policy is usually offered with a deferment period and this is the amount of time that you need to be unemployed before you are able to put in a claim. Usually it will be in the region of between 30 and 90 days. Some providers will backdate your policy to the first day of you becoming unemployed and others do not so check this in the terms and conditions. A policy would then run for between 12 and 24 months again depending on the terms set by the provider.
Income payment protection cover would provide the most protection as this allows you to insure up to a certain amount of your own income. If you then need to make a claim you would get this money back tax-free. You can use it to continue meeting the demands of your mortgage and this is essential. By getting behind on your mortgage by just one missed payment the lender will want to know how and when you are going to catch up. Keep missing payments and they will instruct their solicitor to take you to court to repossess your home and have you evicted.
Of course income cover as unemployment protection would allow you more protection than just for your mortgage. You would also be able to keep up with all of your other outgoings such as any loan or credit card repayments you have to make each month. If you get behind on these then again serious problems arise. At the very least your credit rating would be affected and if you wanted to borrow again in the future this could be very hard. You might even have to pay top rates of interest for a bad credit loan. In the worst case you could see the lender taking you to court and this would mean a County Court Judgement and possibly bailiffs taking your possessions. You would also not have the worry of where to find money for bills such as food, heating and lightning or have to make drastic changes to your lifestyle.
Simon Burgess is Managing Director of the award-winning British Insurance, a specialist provider of unemployment protection. |
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