Its aims

Income Protection aims to provide you with a regular benefit if you suffer illness or injury leading to a loss of income. Your benefit can replace lost earnings, help maintain key expenditures or, if you don’t work, it can meet additional expenditures. It offers the choice of how soon you want the benefits to be paid to take account of the income from your employment. It will provide cover for the duration of the contract no matter how many claims you make. Under current legislation it can provide a tax-free cash sum payable at your selected retirement age.

What is Income Protection?

The plan is designed to replace up to 60% of your income in the event of unexpected sickness or accident. Cover will start after three months of the policy commencement. Then, if as a result of illness or injury you are unable to work for more than three consecutive days, the benefits of the policy will be paid from the first day of incapacity unless you have chosen to defer the benefits for either 1,4,8,13,26, or 52 weeks.

If you are unable to return to your normal occupation due to your illness or disability, but are able to carry out some gainful employment, the plan has the discretion to continue to pay a reduced benefit to cover any loss in earnings.

Potential Optional Benefits

Accident Protection

Whatever your chosen deferred period, you may take ‘Accident Protection’ from day one. This pays out from the first day of incapacity in the event of an accident, which results in more than three consecutive days off work

Index Linking

To ensure your benefit retains its value you can opt to have your cover increased automatically once a year in line with the Retail Price Index. This means that your benefit increases in line with inflation, thereby keeping its purchasing power and worth.

Terminal Illness Cover

This is included in the Standard Plan and would pay out up to six months sickness benefit plus any credit standing to your name, if you were diagnosed with a terminal illness during the term of the plan. Terminal Illness is defined as advance or rapidly progressing incurable illness where, in the opinion of an attending consultant and the insurance companies chief Medical Officer, the life expectancy is no greater than 12 months.