I’m interested to know how much cover people generally take out to cover themselves for the unexpected?

A few years back the wife and I were both in full time employment with 1 child and a mortgage.
We only had Life and Critical Illness cover so that if either of us pegged it or got critically ill – our policy would pay out around 50% of our mortgage.

Since then, we’ve had another child and are now both self-employed (running the same business) – so if something happened to either of us the risks are higher because the business would most likely fold.
We also have a 2nd child.

So, I’m thinking of making the following changes:

Life and critical illness cover – increased to cover 75% of mortgage should anything happen to either of us.
Accident insurance / Income protection – To give us a monthly income or lump sum if something happens that prevents one of us from working for a period of time. (I’ve just broken my ankle which is hitting us hard).

If it was up to me I would rather pay a bit more each month with peace of mind knowing that if anything happens then we shouldn’t have to worry about finances. However my wife thinks I shouldn’t be so paranoid.

I’m interested to know what people generally cover themselves for – and to what extent?

Any advice appreciated 🙂

Accident and income protection we haven’t got, but then we are not self employed.
Life and critical illness is 100% of the remaining mortgage. It came as standard as part of our mortgage stuff

Life cover for the whole of the mortgage plus about 10k extra to pay for a funeral which are usually 4-7kish, we do have savings currently which would be enough for a funeral but you know, we might have spent that in the future. Take out a level term policy as the premiums aren’t much more if you’re youngish and get more expensive the older you get. Then a seperate crit lump sum policy for approx 50% of the mortgage as we’re both employed with 6 months full pay if we’re off work long term. Income protection with a short term before payout makes a lot of sense for self employed people.
My recommendation is for seperate life and crit policy, if they’re bundled altogether it’ll pay out if one you gets cancers for eg and then the policy ends meaning you’re left without life cover much older and with more expnsive premiums.

Life and critical illness cover here. Plus I’ve a cheap as chips policy that pays various amounts out for broken limbs and hospitalisation.

I’ve only got income protection at the moment, think of swapping it for life + crit illness.

I don’t really have anything useful to add, but I’m watching this thread with interest.

Death-in-service of my Pension pays £250k.

My life insurance pays the same, we don’t currently have a mortgage but it would be enough for my Wife to buy a lovely house for her and the kids for cash. I check the brakes on my car every morning.

MrsMomo and I have a joint policy for life and critical illness which would pay off 100% of the mortgage, it’s not cheap (c£115 p/m) but we like the piece of mind it gives. I do need to have a shop around though as I’m sure I can get the monthly premium down, it was arranged by our mortgage advisor so I’m fairly certain I can make a saving.

We don’t have any additional cover, I am lucky that my company pays 6 months sickness at 100% pay and redundancy terms are very good if that came up. MrsMomo is an outstanding teacher and has been headhunted into her last 2 positions so again, redundancy is not too much of a worry for us. Your circumstances are obviously different and if I were self employed I would be looking for some form of income protection.

Momo, don’t know how much your mortgage is but that’s HIGH. I pay 10% of that for mortgage +25% death and critical illness

Ours is 100% of the mortgage.

Which TBH is daft as when we were working we both had good death in service benefits, although I’m now not working so won’t be changing in the short term so once I’m back in a job we’ll probably reduce it to 100%-death in service benefit.

If I was self employed or there was a risk (like you and your wife running the same company) of future financial hardship I’d want it to be 100%.

I went with rule of thumb suggested here, amongst other places. 10x my income, level term till kids leave home.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/insurance/cheap-life-insurance

As Jekkyl says, check out separate policies – we’ve got one each for me amissus for basically the same price as a dual one.

Thanks for all the good advice!

There are so many different choices it’s hard to know what gives the best value for money.

Spent about 3 hours in total on phone today to different brokers and still not quite there. To be continued tomorrow…

Advice for me, many years ago was enough to pay for childcare and wipe out the mortgage while the remaining partner works full time. It was about 3x salary for me as I had a substantial death in service benefit and dependents pension as part of my occupational pension scheme.

250k life and CIC level cover. Maximum cover for both elements at a premium we are happy to pay. Mine is heavily employer discount rated mind due to employee benefits