Protect Your Loan Repayments With Loan Cover In Case You Should Lose You Income

As no one knows what’s around the corner, if you have monthly loan repayments to meet you should give some serious consideration to how you would continue to repay them if you were to find yourself out of work through suffering an illness, accident or if you should find yourself unemployed by such as redundancy. Loan cover can give you great peace of mind but it can only do the job it’s intended to do if it is suitable for your circumstances.

Loan cover can give you a monthly income which you can then use to continue meeting your loan repayments if you should lose your income through being out of work for any length of time. The tax free income that a policy can bring would start between the 31st day and the 90th day of being out of work depending on the individual provider and would then continue for between 12 and 24 months.

However you do have to be aware that there are certain factors that can stop you from making a claim and these are listed as the exclusions in a policy with some being common to all policies. If you are of retirement age, self-employed, suffer from a pre-existing medical condition are only in part time work then it wouldn’t be in your best interest to take out a policy, while these are the most common there can be other exclusions as policies differ and it is essential that you read the key facts and exclusions before buying a policy.

Sticking with a specialist standalone provider is essential when taking out cover as in the past loan cover has been widely mis-sold, namely by well known high street brands. This was highlighted in 2005 when the Office of Fair Trading received a super complaint from the Citizens Advice and subsequently several high street firms were handed out fines by the Financial Services Authority. The sector was then referred to the Competition Commission who is currently conducting a comprehensive review which is expected to finish in February 2009. While some changes for the better have been made, the Financial Services Authorities recently stated that little progress has been made in the main areas that need changing, when it comes to selling payment protection products some firms are still lacking in giving out the information needed to ensure that a policy is the right product for the consumers needs at the time of selling.

However the Financial Services Authority are introducing comparison charts in March 2008 and it is hoped that this will make choosing the right policy easier for the consumer as they can answer a series of questions relating to the policy to determine its suitability. Along with this consumers will be told how much they will pay for the cover and what the exclusions in a policy are so that you know straight away if it is a suitable product, for the time being the best way to get all the information needed is to go with a specialist standalone provider for your cover along with the advice needed.

Simon Burgess is Managing Director of the award-winning British Insurance, a specialist provider of loan cover, mortgage payment protection insurance and income protection insurance.

Article Source: http://www.eArticlesOnline.com