What if the unthinkable happens?

The slow-down in the economic growth for the past few years has shown yet again that there is no such thing such as a “job for life”. There are several examples of big companies such as Corus known as Tata Steel, major retail chains such as Jessops, Woolworths and Big Buy which exit the market leaving several thousands of employees without any jobs.

There was also an expectation that large companies would look after their employees if they were unable to work due to an illness or any unexpected accident. However this is not the case anymore as most employers have either fully removed sick pay benefits or have drastically reduced them to a few weeks.

It is not unusual to have friends or family members who have lost their income and are struggling to pay their bills. The question is what can be done to protect against loss of income?

This is exactly what Income Protection Insurance is all about, it protects you against loss of income due to an accident, sickness or unemployment. A small premium, which can be as low as £1 a day, can cover you against loss of income of up to about £1000 a month.

In the UK there are several specialist insurers who offer various types of income protection. Some insurers also allow the flexibility for you to choose just unemployment or just accident and sickness.

They also allow you to choose how long you want the benefit amount to be paid. With most insurers, your current gross income is a qualifying criterion and you can cover up to 65% of your gross income. When a claim is made, there are no taxes deducted and so this allows you to cover nearly your entire net salary.

Income Protection Insurance not only gives you peace of mind, but also gives you the much required quality time that has to be set aside to look for new jobs. Currently over 10,000 new policies are incepted every month and this is increasing.

As the old saying goes “better safe than sorry”, so cover your income today and don’t leave it until it’s too late. Remember, when things go wrong and you lose your income, it is only Income Protection Insurance that will come to your rescue!