Irish Insurance Brokers

Insurance brokers can offer a wide variety of services to customers. Some brokers specialize in certain areas of Insurance, investments, Pensions and other financial products. The main benefit of using the services of a broker over say a bank is that with a broker there are a number of different services offered to the client. In most cases banks are tied to an insurance agency so the client can only get 1 quote with them. In a brokerage, you will find a number of different providers with multiple different quotes and rates. This gives the broker some leverage over the insurance agencies in order to get the client the best deal available to them. 

For a potential client, the most time efficient way to price the market for a policy is to use a broker. The broker will offer the most suitable product available at the best price and in many circumstances improve on the policy already in place through a bank. 

There are a variety of insurance products on the market to suit every need. Life assurance on the …

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Return of Payments (Insurance Undertakings) Regulations 2011 (S.I. No 641 of 2011)

These regulations were introduced in 2011.  They require Life companies to make returns to Revenue on an annual basis, where payments have been made to policyholders in respect of savings and investment policies.

The first returns were made to Revenue by Irish Life in September 2012.  In future years, the returns must be made by 31st March each year.

Revenue may follow up in respect of some of the cases reported in the returns.  This may involve follow up queries to Irish Life to seek clarification of the information returned.  It may also result in queries being directed by Revenue to customers who receive the payment. Depending on the nature of the queries raised by Revenue, the customer may need to contact Irish Life to clarify details relating to the payment.

With effect from 1st January 2013, an additional requirement comes into effect arising from the new regulations.  This requires Irish Life to ask customers for their PPSN/tax number at the point of sale and to record this on our systems.

When payments are made out to customers in respect …

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Group Mortgage Protection Cover

The housing loan lender is obliged under the Consumer Credit Act 1995, section 126(1) to arrange at least one group or block policy with a life company to cover those borrowers who do not have their own protection cover.

The lender is the legal owner of the policy however the cost of each borrowers cover is passed on to them by means of increasing their loan repayments accordingly. While the lender is obliged to attempt to cover all its housing loan borrowers there are  some exceptions allowed under section 126(2) of the Consumer Credit Act 1995. a: when the house under loan is not intended to be the principle residence of the borrower or their dependants. b: borrowers who are not acceptable to the insurer or would only be acceptable at significantly higher premium rate than normal (i.e. high risk individuals or are in bad health). c: borrowers who are over 50 years of age at time of loan approval. d: borrowers who at the time the loan is made have sufficient life assurance cover that can be assigned to …

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Types of life cover, term assurance and whole of life

Temporary Assurances

Temporary assurances (term assurance) provides life assurance and /or serious illness cover for a fixed period (called the term) usually for a fixed premium. These policies are called temporary because they provide life and serious illness protection cover, when the policy term ends there is no cash pay out and the policy ceases.

The policy pays out a capital sum if the insured event happens, that is death or serious illness. Of course should the policy holder stop paying the premiums the cover will cease. The policy term is from 1 year upwards, typically 30 – 40 years, some life companies have an upper age limit on temporary assurances of 75 – 80 years.

There are five types of temporary Assurance Policies. a: Term Assurance b:  Convertible Term Assurance (CTA) c: Section 785 Assurance d: Family Income benefit (FIB) e: Mortgage Protection (MPP)

Whole of Life Assurances

Whole of life assurance policies have no fixed term, they do not cease at a fixed point in time, they provide cover throughout life. However this cover might not be guaranteed. …

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Death is a certainty, so why not buy into it?

In 1911 something interesting happened, the US Supreme Court made a ruling in the Grigsby vs Russell that allowed a person to essentially ‘sell their interest’ in their own life assurance policy. The case was over a condition in an insurance policy that it shall be ‘void for non-payment of premiums’ as being only that it shall be voidable at option of the company. In other words, it wasn’t just up to the company’s (issuers) discretion. The second issue was the rule of public policy that forbids the taking out of insurance by one on the life of another in which he has no insurable interest does not apply to the assignment by the insured of a perfectly valid policy to one not having an insurable interest.

The idea of ‘insurable interest’ still stands as a central tenet in insurance, for instance, I can’t take out a life assurance policy on a stranger because I face no loss in the event of their death, in fact, if you were the beneficiary of …

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Bank margins after NAMA

The current debate is raging over NAMA and the pricing of loans, much of it centres on the value of the properties in question and about the way in which a ‘loan’ is valued (as opposed to the underlying asset). This makes for good headlines, but it doesn’t help the average person who is not shaping policy and who’s sole role in this mess will be to carry the can and pay their part in the tax pool which will ultimately fund the bailout.

However, you may be affected in other ways, and these are things which you have the choice of opting out of, namely that of the margin you are paying if you currently have any debt/credit outstanding.

Once NAMA comes in it will be extremely likely that banks increase their margins, it is important to consider the ‘why’ as much as the ‘when’ though so we’ll take a look at those.

Why?

PTsb lead the way on this, because they are not getting NAMA protection they have no need to worry …

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Hedgefunds, risk, and finding the silver lining of any dark cloud.

Here is a simple question: ‘how do you protect or even augment your portfolio returns when markets are crashing or where there is systemic risk?’ if you have an answer then you can be a little smug because the majority of fund managers, the best and brightest the world of finance has to offer, for the most part didn’t have an answer during the last two years and if they did they didn’t (by and large) act upon it.

The classic definition of a hedgefund is not the ponzi-schemes run by the likes of Bernie Madoff, rather it was a fund that strategically goes long and short to produce positive gains regardless of whether the market goes up or down, that was what Winslow Jones was doing when he started the first hedge fund in 1949, while managed fund managers are happy to post a 20% loss when the averaage is -30% (for instance), hedgefund managers are meant to be able to …

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The ‘Rich Man’ died a ‘Pauper’… LTV’s and Life Cover

There is a risk creeping into the lives of many that they are not aware of, one that every generation has continually faced and also one that is the greatest wealth destroyer of all, namely death and debt. Nothing kills wealth quicker than death and in particular in circumstances where the estate is not settled correctly in advance or where there are large debts that were not covered.

Every person I know is bulletproof in theory but corporeal in practice and that means that many of us have risks that we are not covering, you can’t cover 100% of the bases 100% of the time but some do need to be covered and it doesn’t have to be rocket science.

How did the rich man die a pauper? We’ll take an example of a person with a home and two RIP’s (residential investment properties), We’ll say that the lady of the house is a solicitor earning €120,000 a year her name is Jane Doe, and the man of …

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The 'Rich Man' died a 'Pauper'… LTV's and Life Cover

There is a risk creeping into the lives of many that they are not aware of, one that every generation has continually faced and also one that is the greatest wealth destroyer of all, namely death and debt. Nothing kills wealth quicker than death and in particular in circumstances where the estate is not settled correctly in advance or where there are large debts that were not covered.

Every person I know is bulletproof in theory but corporeal in practice and that means that many of us have risks that we are not covering, you can’t cover 100% of the bases 100% of the time but some do need to be covered and it doesn’t have to be rocket science.

How did the rich man die a pauper? We’ll take an example of a person with a home and two RIP’s (residential investment properties), We’ll say that the lady of the house is a solicitor earning €120,000 a year her name is Jane Doe, and the man of …

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