Savings of €635 a year to be made in Mortgage Protection

We were mentioned in an article by Charlie Weston writing in the Independent about mortgage protection. The point was raised (figures supplied by the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission) that savings of up to €635 were possible.

The parts mentioning Irish Mortgage Brokers are what follows next: It’s normally done on a “joint life, first event” basis which means that if two people take out the policy and die simultaneously it only pays out once and the sum is usually engineered to cover only the balance of the loan.

It does this because it’s created as a “decreasing-term” policy, which means the amount it pays out decreases over time, the same as your mortgage does as you pay it.

It has a set term, in line with the mortgage term, according to Karl Deeter of Irish Mortgage Brokers.

So if you take out a mortgage for €250,000 over 25 years then this policy should track it fairly closely, so that if the policy holder or holders die the mortgage is cleared.

Typically, it’s the cheapest type of life …

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Podcast: How to get cheap insurance with Darragh Farrell, episode 00003

In this podcast we briefly looked at how to get cheap insurance. The amount of people who overpay for insurance is high in our opinion, and while it’s great that some folks seem to want to do all they can to make insurance companies profitable, we don’t agree with that so we spoke about ways to chop your bill down while keeping the same cover.

Darragh Farrell has been with us for almost a decade and has been a financial advisor for far longer, he holds his QFA and is also the person who heads up our sister site yes.ie which is purely about financial services.

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RTE Talking Money: The cost of raising kids

This week on RTE’s ‘Talking Money’ we looked at the cost of raising a child. Everybody who ever had kids knows it’s expensive, but did they realise it can cost about €105,000 per child? That’s a real eye opener and that so many parents cut back on vital financial needs like life insurance to allow for general consumption is a concern. As always, you’re bound to be entertained as Karl Deeter and Jill Kerby ‘talk money’.

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RTE Talking Money on Life Insurance

Back in June (sorry for the delay, we had the recording but didn’t post it!) we did a piece on life insurance and both how and why it matters.

As usual, Jill and Karl didn’t always agree on everything but the need to insure against your greatest risk was universally accepted and how to do it sensibly is really straight forward.

You can catch us again ‘Talking Money’ every Monday on RTE Drivetime at about 18:15.

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Talking Money – Switch your mortgage to save

This week on ‘Talking Money’ Karl Deeter and Jill Kerby were discussing ‘switching’ with Cormac on RTE’s Drivetime. It was coincidental that many of the points we made were reinforced by the Central Bank findings this week on mortgage switching on points such as assertive customer behaviour being important and not allowing inertia to hold people back.

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Talking Money on RTE Drivetime: Keeping up insurances

This week on ‘Talking Money’ which is on RTE’s Drivetime Mondays at 18:15 we covered the issue of mortgage arrears and how it impacts on insurance, in particular life cover.

The problem we see time and again is that people cancel their life insurance to save money and that is false economy, or worse, they took out cover with the bank and it’s tied to the mortgage payment so that when you miss one you miss the other, this is a mistake and we set out what you have to do to fix it.

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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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Life cover and mortgage arrears

I was asked to help form part of a working group on mortgage arrears which has yet to publish their respective papers on various topics. The one I undertook had to do with mortgage arrears and the issue of life cover on a loan.

While the intention wasn’t to release anything for a few weeks yet, I thought it was pertinent to share this one given some of the days headlines (link to the paper is at the end of the blog).

The area of mortgage protection is a tricky one because some people are paying beyond the necessary amount and others are not, but they equally can’t make the payments so the policy lapses. What happens next is that in some cases a person dies, one example we are working through involves a suicide, and others involve people who become terminally ill.

Deirdre Clune made headlines today when she pointed this out, it’s covered in TheJournal.ie and also in The Examiner. …

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Does an e-smoker have to pay higher insurance prices like a smoker does?

Do e-cigarrette smokers get treated like regular smokers when it comes to life assurance prices? The smoking status (which is in its strictest form described as having smoked ‘any tobacco in the last 12 months’) varies from insurer to insurer. 

Irish Life: at present someone who uses e-cigarettes (ie no other tobacco-related products) is classed as a non-smoker (Please note this may change in the future).

Aviva: smoker rates

Zurich: rate “e-smokers” at +50%, assuming that they have already been off (tobacco) cigarettes a minimum of 12 months, the reason being the likelihood of these smokers returning to full smoking habit is quite high.

Caledonian: considers anyone smoking tobacco or e-cigarettes, or anyone using nicotine replacement patches, gum etc in the past twelve months to be a smoker. Smoker rates will apply to that client.

New Ireland: classes e-cigarette users as non-smokers, but this is currently being reviewed.

Friends First: smoker rates

Worth considering which company to speak to if you use e-cigarettes!

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