What to watch for when getting house insurance?

When you are in the market to buying a home, there are many things that you are doing to prepare and getting house insurance is going to be one of those things. Not everyone is thinking about what to watch for when it comes to getting house insurance but there are a few things you need to be aware of.

How much coverage do you need?

The more that you cover, the less you will have to pay if something were to happen. When figuring how much coverage you need, you may want to consider the square footage of you home, local construction costs, the style of your home, how many bedrooms, bathrooms, and any special features in your home. You will also want to make a detailed list of the things you own in order to have a better understanding of how much insurance you will need.

What type of coverage?

Knowing the type of coverage that you want is important when getting house insurance. You will want to contact multiple insurance companies to get quotes. You can also …

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Why do people use insurance brokers?

Insurance brokers are only here to help you. Like mortgage brokers are the middlemen between their client and the lenders, insurance brokers are the middleman between you and the insurance companies, and finding you the right policy is what they do best. With so much going on in our world, having life insurance is great for giving you and your loved one’s peace of mind. Insurance brokers can find you great deals, save you time, help you to understand the policy, and overall have a better understanding of a number of insurance companies.

Since insurance brokers have access to multiple companies, they are able to get you a great policy with a premium that will work for you. They will ask you a number of questions to get a better understanding of what type of coverage you are looking for. From there they are able to show you several possible policies and explain each of them in enough detail for you to fully understand what each of them covers.

Understanding your policy and what type of coverage you have is …

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Advice You Need For Life Cover in Ireland

Whole vs. Term Life Cover – Term Life insurance covers you for a specified period of time (ex. 10, 20 or 30 years). You are only paid benefits if you die within the term. Whole life insurance covers you for your whole life. When you die, a lump-sum payment will be paid to your family. Contemplate the Type of Cover You Need – For example, if you are considering buying life cover for your children, consider that it is taking longer than previous generations to get established into the workforce. They may need until their mid-twenties to be able to afford their own life insurance. Contemplate your family – The earlier you die, the more money you need to support your family. If you were to hypothetically die in your thirties, your family would be missing out on potentially thirty years of income that you would be providing. On the other hand, if you were to die in your seventies, it may not affect your family as drastically financially-speaking as it would if you were in your thirties. Consider Specified Illness …

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Online Mortgage in Ireland 2019

As Operations and Compliance Manager of Irish Mortgage Brokers here since 2004, Karl Deeter has established himself strongly in the mortgage and financial world. One of his latest projects is Yes.ie that he started back in 2016. In short, yes.ie is an online brokerage. The website allows you to apply for mortgages, remortgages, investments or buy to let loans, while comparing the most competitive prices all in the comfort of your own home. On top of looking for mortgage rates, yes.ie also offers services for insurances. So, if you need mortgage protection, a pension, or life insurance, yes.ie has all the information you need within a few clicks. 

Everything about this website is geared towards the client. There’s no opening or closing time, and everything is done at your own pace. It’s hard to find the time to make an appointment with a broker. Now, there’s no need to take time out of your busy schedule to do so. Without facing the pressure of a salesperson, you can feel comfortable and apply on your own terms. 

If ever you need …

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Jobs at risk due to lack of insurers for the leisure sector

The insurance crisis has heightened due to one of the largest and last insurance firms offering coverage for the leisure sector pulled out of the market. The firm pulling out of the market presents a risk for the stability  many jobs.

The insurer was based in the UK, referred to as LeisureInsure and is said that it will not accept quotes for new businesses as of this week. Furthermore, LeisureInsure has noted that by the end July, it will also stop all renewals.

LeisureInsure was one of the few remaining insurers that offered coverage for unique businesses such as soccer teachers, drama classes, event companies, bouncy castle operators, leisure center, yoga classes and even some play centers.

The insurance company was based in Oxford, UK and was a management agent for the insurer AXA XL. AXA XL is a subsidiary of a global insurance company AXA. LeisureInsure dealt with insurance brokers and policyholders.

According to the Alliance for Insurance Reform, thousands of businesses will no longer be able to receive insurance coverage. The withdrawal of LeisureInsure will ultimately effect play …

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Sunday Independent: Weigh up the cost of insurance

This is a piece we wrote for the Sunday Independent (originally appeared on the 4th of May).

We buy insurance to protect something we own or value. When asked, ‘What is your greatest asset?’ many people will say their family home; the more enlightened might say it’s their health.

Wealth is clearly something which many of us value – however, some people incorrectly mistake their income for wealth.

Cashflow can have endless liabilities stacked against it, which is why believing a person making six figures is ‘wealthy’ is often wrong – when viewed in the totality of their financial position.

Assets minus liabilities equals wealth – that’s a basic accounting equation.

It’s important to have a good understanding of wealth and of what you value before buying insurance. You should also ask yourself if the insurance in question is worthwhile.

The principle of indemnity is that you can’t be insured beyond the loss you experience, and there is always the issue of the cost of insurance versus the risk of the …

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Interesting Life Assurance statistics

This is based on research from the Broker/Life Assurance industry, so put on your filters, but nonetheless it is interesting.

1 in every 2 adults (1.6 million people) have NO Life cover or protection of any kind, but 9 out of 10 people admit to needing it.

1 in 5 people (360,000 families) are considering taking out life cover in the next 12 months, but most think it is dearer than it is. Engagement is the big issue – almost 60% of people say they are simply not being asked. On the last point, it seems we have some more phone calls to make!

🙂

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The day I mis-sold an insurance policy

About five years ago I had a couple in with me who were buying a home, I was helping them to determine their insurance needs and I realised that they had literally no protection if either of them ever fell seriously ill – not via their job/employer schemes or individually. So I suggested that they consider some serious illness cover, it would have cost them about €20 a month but they were insistent that they only wanted what was ‘cheapest and nothing more’.

As an adviser, it isn’t my job to always accept what people say they want because often, with adequate probing and understanding they actually want something entirely different, a skewed but simple way of understanding what I mean is that when saving or investing the majority of people want ‘high growth and high security’ – when in fact, these two features are normally night and day, if there ever was an asset that could deliver high growth with deposit account style security then everybody would pile in and the market would adjust accordingly, therefore you need to …

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The future of compensation in financial services (perhaps!)

I wrote before about the errors of compensation in financial services, in a nutshell people were earning money for short term performance in a long term game. However, what I had failed to do was provide potential solutions, this post is about alternative solutions, it will focus primarily on brokerage (because that is what I know best) but it can equally apply to banks or any financial company.

The basic tenets are

1. Long term reward for long term performance 2. Ensuring that bonus’s, while delivered in the short term, have some kind of long term implication. 3. Creating schemes that reward consistency and best advice, rather than one based on transactions.

I would state in advance, that enacting any of these plans will mean further economic pain for a group of workers who are already at the epicentre of the worldwide financial storm, it would also require considerable will to roll out, as well as the co-operation of the banks, the Financial Regulator, …

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