INCOME PROTECTION......WHY YOU NEED IT.?

Income protection insurance is a means whereby you can still receive up to 75 percent of your usual income, despite the fact that you have become injured or ill to such a degree that you can not carry out your work anymore. Without having such protection you would have no other choice than to eat up your savings and even finish up on a government disability pension in order to survive. What's more, if you are the owner of a small business you might have to employ somebody else to do your work for you so that your business can carry on without you. Income protection insurance is therefore just as important an item in your insurance portfolio as is life insurance.

Like most personal, or life insurance policies, you, or your dependents, never fully realize their full value until you have to make a claim. If you have nothing to claim against you can find yourself in a seriously adverse financial position very quickly. Therefore your need for income protection will depend on how much you stand to lose, should you become ill or injured to the extent you can no longer contribute to your own welfare.

Income Protection Should Not be Confused With Workers Compensation.

Workers compensation will cover all your medical costs and out of pocket expenses but if you are to be out of work for any extended period of time you could still find yourself in need of income protection insurance. Of course if you work for yourself you will not even have any workers compensation to help you out, plus even if you are covered by your employer's compensation, if you are injured outside of work Workers Compensation doesn't have to pay.

The risk of not having adequate income protection insurance could mean the eventual loss of your family home, or being unable to pay your rent, even your day to day expenses like buying food for your table would be affected.
Compare Quotes and Terms From Several Companies Before Deciding

In order to find the best deal as far as income protection insurance in concerned you will have to compare quotes from several life insurance companies. Premiums and terms can differ greatly between companies and the cost of the cover can depend a lot on how long you are willing to wait before your income protection payments start being applied.

Another factor to compare will be the length of time you wish the payments to continue for. It is possible to have the benefit continue until you reach retirement age. The amount of monthly payments you wish to receive will also affect the cost of the cover.

All these factors will need serious thought before you go ahead and sign up for protection only to find that the policy you chose doesn't give you all you need to cover things like your rent or mortgage, car payments, credit cards and general living expenses. The payment benefits are normally capped at 75 percent of your average income before you became sick or injured, because it has been determined that anything more than that would be an incentive to not return to work when you recover.

There are two major issues to keep in mind when finalising your income protection policy with a life insurance company these are:

Be certain that the policy you are signing up to is index linked so that it will automatically keep up with any inflationary increases.
Make sure that it is a non-cancellable policy. This means you will always be assured that your policy will keep being renewed every time it comes due for renewal. If you don't make sure of this right from the start you will find yourself having to undergo a health check every time you want to extend it further.

If you leave yourself open to re-assessment you could face an increase in premium costs. You should also examine the terms and conditions for a clause that could see your benefits lessened if you had another income stream to fall back on. Some income protection insurance policies will only pay you if you cannot work in the field you are trained to work in. This means that if any other work is around you may have to take it on.

Other policies will pay you regardless of whether other work is available or not, as long as you can't work in an area of your own expertise. This is particularly important for a professional such as a doctor who probably could not practice as a GP anymore because of his or her injury or illness but could work as a watchman at an industrial site where all he would be called on to do would be to monitor on site cameras.

As with life insurance, income protection insurance is best taken out with a solid reliable insurance company that has been around for a long time. The longer such companies have been in operation the more policy holders they obtain and the stronger they become. Longevity is also a good sign that people trust them and stay with them