How often do you consider how you would cope financially if you were unable to work due to sickness or injury?
If you haven’t thought about it before, the first thing that may come to mind is that your employer will give you sick pay, but have you considered that not all employers pay full sick pay, and the length that they pay sick pay varies by employer (you should check your employee handbook to ensure you understand how long your sick pay will last). The basic requirement for employers is to pay 28 weeks Statuary Sick Pay of £89.35, which is considerably less than the average wage and many may struggle to live off this.
Also, what if sickness or injury meant that you would need to stay off longer than to 28 weeks? You would need to find a new way of making sure you have some form of regular monthly income. Whether you are a married with children or a single parent, you want peace of find that you can cover your bills if you were out of work.
Shepherds Friendly Income Protection Insurance can provide you with a regular monthly income when you are off work due to sickness or injury, and help you to put your mind at ease that your bills and expenses will be covered so you can focus on recovering. What’s more is you will also receive our enhanced benefits from our partnership with Nuffield Health. Giving you 24/7 medical advice from a GP, an emotional wellbeing app to help your mental health and 20% off a Nuffield gym membership.
Our Income Protection plan is flexible, as it allows you to select various options to suit your specific needs and circumstances. For example, you can choose to cover up to a maximum of 70% of your gross pay if you are employed, or 70% of your net profit if you are self-employed, while you can also cover less than this if you preferred a lower monthly premium.
You can also choose when you would like the benefits to start being paid to you (known as the deferred period), if you needed to make a claim. We offer Day 1 and Week 1 cover, right through to a deferred period of 52 weeks.
Typically, the longer the deferred period you decide on, the lower your monthly premiums might be. Therefore, your chosen deferred period may depend on whether you are likely to receive sick pay from your employer during your absence from work and how long this might last. You may also feel you have enough savings to see you through for a while, so may choose to have a longer deferred period because of this.
Do you need a short-term or full-term cover?
An important factor you need to consider is whether you need short-term or full term cover.
Here at Shepherds Friendly, our Income Protection plan gives you the option to choose either short-term or full-term cover. Our short-term option typically has lower monthly premiums and offers shorter-term claim option where the benefits are only payable for a maximum of two years. If you choose this option and need to make a claim, we will stop making benefit payments when the two-year maximum period under that option ends or one of the following conditions listed below.
With our full-term income protection insurance, we will pay the benefit until you return to work or if one of the following circumstances occur:
1. Your Doctor declares that you can perform all the essential duties of your Occupation.
2. You no longer have any loss of Income.
3. The House Persons Benefit Term, or Temporary Residence Abroad Benefit Term ends.
4. Your plan end date is reached, or you die.
5. If you have selected the Two Year Limited Benefit option when the two-year maximum period under that option ends.
6. You fail to meet the Terms and Conditions of Income Protection
The maximum term of the full term Income Protection plan is up to your 70th birthday, and the minimum term of the plan is five years.
If you would like further information to help you decide what income protection insurance is right for you, you can find out more about our Full-term and Short Term Income Protection here or give our member services team a call.
