Many of us don’t, but it is especially important to regularly review whatever critical illness, income protection and life insurance policies that you may have and determine whether they are still fit for purpose. Since circumstances change quite regularly, you may find that the cover that you have isn’t adequate, or your circumstances require that you have to upgrade or modify what you have. Sometimes, you might have a review and find that you are actually missing one or more of these important pieces of protection. If any of those situations ring true with you, you need to think about doing something about it.

You would be surprised how quickly your circumstances can change, and with these changes come ample opportunity to reassess what you have in terms of personal insurance and update it as necessary. There are many different scenarios where your insurance needs can change, such as;

Changes with partners.  This doesn’t just apply if you get a new life-partner, who you may want to consider if anything were to happen to you, but if you and an ex-partner had a mortgage together, you may also have had a joint life insurance policy to go with it. When you separate, you can’t normally divide a life insurance policy, which means that one of you has to take it over or you must cancel it entirely. That means the other partner could be without life insurance. And if, after you separate and you have dependents, you should, of course, consider taking out life insurance.

Death in Service. Your workplace might pay out a lump sum if you were to die while you’re employed, although some schemes won’t recognise cohabiting partners as beneficiaries, so you should check this.  If this is the case, you should consider either another policy or a further change to your status from cohabiting to marriage.

Family changes. Children are not cheap, so if you’ve started a family or grown your existing one, make sure this is reflected in the amount of insurance protection you have. You’ll want to ensure that in all scenarios the costs of raising a child, including school fees, clothing, food and so forth can still be met.

Income changes. If your salary has changed you might need to change the amount of cover you took out with your critical illness or income protection policy. When taking out either of these policies, you’ll have started your day rate or income so that you can be confident that in the event of a critical illness and the inability to work, you can ensure you’ll still have money coming in to pay the bills. If your income has grown, you may want to increase this cover.

Health. Have you had a significant change to your lifestyle, such as giving up smoking, or doing more exercise? Factors like these could impact the cost of your critical illness and life insurance and, if some of your lifestyle practices weren’t declared, you may not be able to claim when you need to.

If you want to discuss your family protection needs, come and chat to use at Grange, and see what we can do for you.