10 key reasons to revisit your Protection Insurance cover
Life is unpredictable and marked by pivotal moments. As your circumstances evolve, it's crucial to ensure your protection policies stay aligned. Events like marriage, family changes, moving to a new home, or career shifts introduce new dynamics, often necessitating updates to your protection policy.
Regularly reviewing one's situation and current protection policies is often neglected; remortgaging, in particular, presents the perfect opportunity to ensure that your protection cover meets your needs.
Key reasons to review your Protection Insurance
The amount of Protection insurance you need often reflects your current circumstances and what you want to protect. However, as life changes, it’s essential to review your coverage regularly. Major milestones can impact your insurance needs, and adjusting your policy ensures you’re not overpaying or under-protected.
Failing to review your Protection policies could leave you with too much cover, leading to unnecessary costs, or too little cover, risking insufficient financial support for your family. Regular reviews help keep your cover aligned with your evolving needs.
Here are 10 key reasons to revisit your Protection insurance cover:
- Remortgaging – Raising funds for home improvements, increasing your repayment term, or changing your rate can all affect your financial stability. If your payments have increased, so have your expenses, making robust protection even more important in case of illness or injury.
- Moving Home - When buying a new home or moving, updating your insurance policy is essential. Start by notifying your insurer of your new address. It’s also a great opportunity to review your coverage and premiums. Your new property’s location, size, and value can all impact your policy, so ensuring it suits your updated needs is vital.
- Job or income changes – Changing jobs, earning a promotion, or becoming self-employed often calls for updates to your income protection or disability insurance. If your new role lacks the benefits your previous employer provided, it’s wise to adjust your coverage to fill the gap. Aligning your policies with your current career ensures your financial security stays intact, no matter the changes. Self-employed individuals, for instance, lose access to sick pay and may struggle to cover bills without proper protection in place, for example Income Protection, Critical Illness or Relevant Life Cover.
- Marriage or Divorce - Marriage or divorce can greatly affect your financial responsibilities. When getting married, you might update your policy to include your spouse as a beneficiary or adjust coverage to protect your new family. Conversely, after a divorce, you may need to remove beneficiaries or make other changes, depending on your personal circumstances and wishes. Keeping your policy aligned with your life changes ensures it meets your needs.
- Taking on new debt - Increasing your secured or unsecured borrowing, like a loan for home improvements, a car finance deal, or additional credit card balances, means your loved ones could inherit the responsibility of paying them off if something happens to you. This makes it essential to review your policy and ensure your coverage is sufficient to ease the financial burden on your family.
- Growing family – Raising children is a significant expense, the cost of raising a child to age 18 reported as £260,000 for a couple and £290,000 for a lone parent (Child Poverty Action Group, December 2024)). Life insurance is a key way to secure your family’s future as it grows. If you already have a policy, consider updating it to reflect your children’s long-term financial needs, like funding their education or helping them buy a home. Ensuring they’re supported, even in your absence, offers invaluable peace of mind.
- Health – Positive changes like quitting smoking or resolving past medical conditions can lower premiums, whereas new health issues might make it wiser to secure cover now before they limit your options. Some medical diagnoses might require additional coverage or a specialised plan.
- Lifestyle - Lifestyle factors, such as a high-risk job, adventurous hobbies, or frequent travel, may also call for a reassessment to ensure you’re fully protected.
- Product improvements – Insurers now offer enhanced benefits, including more comprehensive critical illness coverage for children, health apps with GP access, mental health support, and expert second opinions. These advancements could improve your protection with minimal cost differences.
- Policy expiry awareness - Knowing the duration of your insurance policy is key to avoiding coverage gaps. Many policies are defined to run for between 5 and 30 years (for example Term Life Insurance), so it’s important to ensure your coverage extends as long as you need it. Regularly reviewing your policy helps you prepare for expirations, reassess your needs, and potentially secure better terms or additional coverage. Remember, the younger and healthier you are, the more competitive your premiums can be.
Why you should review your Protection cover, even if nothing has changed
Regularly reviewing your insurance coverage is essential, even if nothing in your life has changed. Providers often adjust their pricing, meaning you could be overpaying without knowing it. Like mortgage rates, premiums for life or income protection insurance may decrease over time.
Beyond pricing, policy quality continues to improve as new providers enter the market with enhanced benefits. For instance, some now include market-leading terminal illness cover or critical illness policies with added services, like private GP access.
Consulting a Cleerly Protection Consultant ensures you’re not just getting the best price but also the optimal coverage to suit your needs. Staying proactive could mean better value and superior protection for you and your family.
Discussing With Your Specialist Protection Consultant
If you’re exploring new insurance products or unsure about your current coverage, consulting a Cleerly specialist Protection Consultant is invaluable. They can evaluate your needs, provide a clear breakdown of your options, and help you make informed decisions about your insurance.
Regularly reviewing your policies ensures they remain effective.
At Cleerly, we recommend an annual review if your circumstances haven’t changed, but if they have, schedule a review with a Consultant today - by calling 02394 212912 or request a call-back - to ensure your coverage aligns with your needs. We can discuss your situation and requirements and help resolve key questions, for example:
Whether you have sufficient cover? Do your policies provide sufficient protection for you and your family to maintain your current lifestyle if something unexpected happens.
Clarify your policy terms - Review the details, including coverage limits, exclusions, and renewal options, to ensure there are no surprises when you need to rely on them.
Key features and personal relevance - Stay informed about new options or updates in the market that could better suit your needs. Being proactive helps keep your protection relevant and reliable.
Feeling inspired?
Request a call-back from a Cleerly specialist Protection Consultant
Whether you’re looking to get the ball rolling on an application or you’re just after some friendly advice, don’t hesitate to give us a call on 02394 212912 or complete the form below.
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