Income Cover pays a monthly income during periods when you are unable to earn an income, relieving you of your monthly financial obligations, knowing you have a steady income to support you while you concentrate on recovery.
What would the impact be on your lifestyle and living standards if you were to lose your earnings for, say, one month, one year, five years or possibly for the rest of your working life?
In other words, what would you do if you suddenly lost your job or couldn’t work because of illness or injury? How would you pay your bills and feed your family?
If you’re working and you’re the main breadwinner or income earner for your family, having some protection or insurance for the money that you bring in is a good idea. If you don’t have much in savings, you could end up with a serious financial problem very quickly.
Having Income protection insurance makes sense:
1. Secure your lifestyle – you can insure up to 75% of your income so that should you not be able to work, you have an on-going source of funds to maintain your lifestyle.
2. Safeguard your existing savings and investments – if you can’t work and don’t have a regular income, then you may stand to lose not only any investments you have, but also other assets, such as your home.
3. Government benefits – with the government sickness benefit payable at $225.per week [1], sickness or injury would mean a substantial reduction in your standard of living.
4. Choice – you can work with your treatment providers and other specialist to assist in your rehabilitation and return to fulltime work..
5. Protecting the value of lost income – it’s worth thinking about what you might earn over your lifetime, then consider if something happened and you were unable to work, what you may risk losing.
If you have lost your job or are worried about being made redundant, there are steps you can take to ease the financial pressure. Redundancy can be distressing, but it may also open up new opportunities. The best thing you can do is be prepared. By sticking to a budget and having savings set aside in an emergency fund you’ll be better placed to cope with the initial shock and stress of losing your job.
If you have repayment insurance as part of a personal loan or hire purchase agreement it may cover payments if you are made redundant. Check your policy document for details. Redundancy insurance is also available on its own or as an add-on to life insurance – check your policies to see if you have this type of cover.
Find out more about insurance.
