A dozen insurance policies at 450/month
Insurance
Have you ever wondered how many insurance policies you have, what they cost, and whether they’re right for you? An “audit” of your insurance cover is a good first step in understanding where you are.
Here are some common insurance policies you might have:
- Life assurance - term or whole-life
- Critical illness cover
- Income protection
- Private healthcare, eg BUPA
- Dental plan
- Personal accident
- Pension term insurance
- Bank/card protection (or bank account fees which include an insurance element)
- Payment protection (the infamous PPI) or credit insurance
- Car insurance
- Breakdown cover, eg AA
- Travel insurance
- Phone insurance
- Pet insurance
If you’re a home-owner, you’ll probably have some of these:
- Buildings insurance
- Contents insurance
- Mortgage indemnity guarantee
- Boiler/central heating/electrics cover
- Appliance cover
If you’re a property landlord, you might also have:
- Guaranteed rent insurance
- Landlord’s legal assistance insurance
- Boiler/central heating/electrics cover
- Appliance cover
- Tenancy deposit scheme
If you run a business, you might also have some of these:
- Employer’s liability
- Public liability
- Professional indemnity
- Key man insurance
- Bank account fees which include an insurance element
And I’m sure there are some common ones I’ve missed out, and many uncommon ones.
Our audit
Our family and business has over a dozen insurance policies and our monthly cost is more than £450 (and growing because I haven’t finished tracking eveything down).
Thoughts: The monthly cost is more than twice what I would have guessed offhand. I know that some of our policies are essential. But I’m not sure if we have the right amount of cover. I’m pretty sure that we are over- or under-covered in some areas. I don’t know if there’s any unnecessary overlap between the different policies. I’m sure that each policy made sense at the time it was purchased, but as time passes I’m less confident that our needs and our cover still match. So we have some homework to do.
Opportunities
Could all of this be easier and better? Definitely. It’s quite painful collating and understanding what you have today (even just doing an audit like this), and then it’s painful understanding any gaps and making decisions and thirdly it’s painful buying cover.
Needed: a trustworthy service that tracks what insurance cover you have, helps you understand what you might need, and makes useful suggestions.
