the various mortgage protection products available

[Mogden]

Buildings and content insurance is a must IMHO. Of course buildings insurance is complusory but given that anything that affects your building is likely to impact on your contents too it makes sense. And it covers those silly accidents like sitting on your iPod or flushing your mobile down the loo or accidently turning the freezer off instead of the toaster They also often provide limited legal advice

 

[JTG]

We have got life insurance -- it's about 8 quid a month each to cover the mortgage, but we don't have mortgage protection because I think it's a bit of a rip-off. Better to make sure you have enough savings to cover the mortgage for, say, a year if need be. Depends on how big your mortgage is I suppose.

Yeah, I'd definitely say that if at all possible it's better to provide your own safety net if you can. Only you will know how possible this is and of course if you're building those reserves up over time then there's an element of risk involved while you're doing it.

Up to you innit.

 

[snadge]

building and content is a must but shop around.

mortgage protection insurance is a fucking con' believe it, there are so many get out clauses they should be illegal, all payment protection plans are a con', I'm suprised your mortgage advisor didn't put his Dick Turpin mask on to explain it

 

[JTG]

fwiw, I think I paid out on at least 80% of claims I looked at over two years. It's not that hard to make a claim.

 

[snadge]

Buildings and content insurance is a must IMHO. Of course buildings insurance is complusory but given that anything that affects your building is likely to impact on your contents too it makes sense. And it covers those silly accidents like sitting on your iPod or flushing your mobile down the loo or accidently turning the freezer off instead of the toaster They also often provide limited legal advice

with a hefty excess charge and ridiculously inflated premiums the next 3 years mind you, I've just smashed an canon Ixus 500, about 200 quids worth, it's going to be cheaper to replace it myself after I've paid the ripping cunts back three times over for "peace of mind".

You do know that if you have had three claims on your insurance nobody will touch you for at least 5 years for insurance, some areas of united kingdom, people can not get basic household insurance fo love nor hard cash.

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

What Hollis says. Also, if MPP's are anything like overdraft protection plans, you may as well just burn the money instead as they hardly ever pay out and are often knowingly sold to people who are excluded from payouts in the first place eg Self-employed.

I agree. Some years ago, I converted a bit of a hefty overdraft into a loan. This was more or less at the bank's insistence, because they kept threatening to remove my overdraft facility, and just take all my money being paid in and say 'thank you very much' and not let me make any withdrawals, so basically I had to take out this loan (at an extortionate rate of interest, well above the rates quoted on their leaflets, like 6* % APR *from 6 % but we're going to charge you 15%).

They also insisted that I could only have the loan if I took out the insurance to cover the repayments in case I wasn't working. But I was temping. The insurance would *never* in a million years have paid out to someone in my circumstances. Totally inappropriate and mis-sold to me, but it was a matter of no insurance, no loan, no access to your pay come pay day.

Check the small print very very very carefully even for critical illness cover. A friend of mine has recently been done over for this. She went to the docs a few years ago, was told she had bronchitis, a chest infection. She subsequently did a 'back to practice' course so she could go back to nursing full time and passed all the medicals when she was offered a nursing job. She fell ill, and was diagnosed with emphysema and signed off work tried to make a claim under the payment protection for her loan (an overdraft converted to a loan, the monies were used to support her through her course). The bank/its insurers applied to her docs for her medical notes. Apparently, a few years ago, when she thought she'd had bronchitis, the doc had put something like emphysema(?) in her notes, or an entry had been made in her notes at a later date mentioning emphysema, but my friend had never been told about it. And also she'd passed her medicals on starting her job. Her claim was disallowed and they wouldn't honour her payment protection claim.

You really need to know that you will *not* be covered for anything that relates to something that's cropped up previously in your notes. If there's even a hint in your medical notes that you had a pre-existing condition, they will reject your claim.

 

[JTG]

The bank/its insurers applied to her docs for her medical notes. Apparently, a few years ago, when she thought she'd had bronchitis, the doc had put something like emphysema(?) in her notes, or an entry had been made in her notes at a later date mentioning emphysema, but my friend had never been told about it. And also she'd passed her medicals on starting her job. Her claim was disallowed and they wouldn't honour her payment protection claim.

That's the doctor's fault then. Claims assessors onlt go by what is in the GP's notes, they don't go round making stuff up.

 

[kea]

spoke to my mum last nite and she said she sees a ridiculous number of repossessions cases where the householder says 'but i have a policy that covers me' and she has to make orders to the bank and the insurance company to provide the householder with details of the policy that they weren't issued with before, etc etc ...
anyway, she was definitely on the side of the 'contingency fund' argument.

 

[JTG]

You really need to know that you will *not* be covered for anything that relates to something that's cropped up previously in your notes. If there's even a hint in your medical notes that you had a pre-existing condition, they will reject your claim.

Depends. Some policies only exclude something that you had in the 12 months before the start of the policy and reoccurs in the 12 months after the start or variations on that.

Tbh, PEC clauses are entirely reasonable most of the time. You're asking an insurance company to take a risk on covering you, if you've had something before which may reoccur again you could be basically trying to insure yourself against summat that's fairly likely to happen. Insurance companies aren't stupid.

 

[JTG]

spoke to my mum last nite and she said she sees a ridiculous number of repossessions cases where the householder says 'but i have a policy that covers me' and she has to make orders to the bank and the insurance company to provide the householder with details of the policy that they weren't issued with before, etc etc ...
anyway, she was definitely on the side of the 'contingency fund' argument.

Oh yeah, ime insurance companies are entirely useless at sending out policy documents etc. Basically they get printed off and then they get the office temp or somebody else to send them out unsupervised. This means that the schedule/letter will get sent but not the policy booklet for example.

I recently tried to find details of my card protection insurance cover but realised I'd never received it. I cancelled it 'cos I decided should I be out of work I'll be able to find the funds for the minimum payments anyway.

 

[Shmu]

IMO a better option if you are worried about not being able to make payments is choose a flexible product where you can overpay, underpay or take payment breaks depending on your situation.

Basically, this is what saved us when ICB was made redundant - a great flexible mortgage package that we'd paid enough into to cover us for a nine month stint - also it had the added benefit of not counting as savings that could be seen by the benefits office - not in a normal bank account, but still making the equivalent of interest for us, as reducing (only slightly, obviously) the amount of interest we were paying on our mortgage. This was one of the best financial calls we ever made, I reckon.

 

[FunkyUK]

Buildings and contents insurance only.

Get a flexible mortgage product

fuck payment protection: www.fool.co.uk/news/Comment/2005/c051107d.htm

ask for money based advice on the boards at fool.co.uk

 

[JTG]

From that site:

it's frequently mis-sold to people who wouldn't be able to claim on it anyway. Unfortunately, staff selling loans are usually paid commission so they've got a very strong incentive indeed to persuade you to buy this insurance whether you need it or not.

Spot on.

When I was assessing the claims we'd fairly frequently (like, ooooh, maybe 1 in every 10-20 claims maybe?) get ones where not only was the customer not eligible to claim (due to temp working for example) but they weren't eligible when they took it out either

In other words, it wasn't a case of the customer's circumstances changing after taking the policy and them not checking to see if it was still suitable for them (though this did happen fairly often as well), it was the bastard seller at the bank branch chasing the commission and not being bothered about doing the best thing for the customer.

I swear, commission is the worst thing in the financial industry, it makes an awful lot of people forget entirely about customer service and become total con artists.

I always tried to get people's insurance cancelled and premiums refunded from inception if this happened (some money back for them even if we weren't going to pay out) but - and this is what really used to annoy me - I was often told I couldn't do this because even though they weren't covered by the unemployment side of the policy, the accident & sickness parts were applicable so we couldn't refund

It's a fucking scandal.

I emphasise that as I've said before, examples of companies paying out due to what the doctor has said is down to the doctor and I often feel other gripes aren't at all justified either but yes, there are many many examples of insurance companies being really cuntish and basically finding entirely legal (but totally dishonest) ways of fleecing people.

I'm sorry to earn a living this way, I'm trying to get out asap and in the meantime doing my best to advise people honestly rather than from my employers' point of view

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

That's the doctor's fault then. Claims assessors onlt go by what is in the GP's notes, they don't go round making stuff up.

But it's also a cautionary tale about small print and exclusions.

If my friend had been told about the emphysema, at that time, (aside from a short bout of bronchitis) she felt fit and well enough to complete her course. She had also passed the hospital's medicals in order to be offered the job and to start work.

The point is that she had a pre-existing condition that worsened so she wasn't covered.

The point is that if a person, say, goes to their GP with frequent headaches, or back ache or whatever, gets a few painkillers, thinks nothing of it, a year later they get a mortgage and the payment protection employment, and a few months down the line it turns out that the headache or back ache was actually cancer, that's likely to be tough shit.

While someone here was (very admirably, I might add! ) prepared to pay out on claims more often than not, most people are likely to have their claims processed by zealous functionaries who will feel their prime objective is to turn claims down wherever possible.

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

fwiw, I think I paid out on at least 80% of claims I looked at over two years. It's not that hard to make a claim.

JTG, can I ask... did you not have any kind of targets to meet, or claims ceilings you had to try and adhere to.

Did the company not have any kind of monitoring system in place that might have kept a tally of the different claims processors approve/reject rates? I mean, if you passed around 80 per cent of claims for payment, and say you had a colleague who only passed around 50 per cent of claims on for payment, would that kind of discrepancy have been picked up and queried? Was there any kind of 'quality control' whereby you'd have the claims you processed reviewed by someone else to check your decision making?

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

... I'm sorry to earn a living this way, I'm trying to get out asap and in the meantime doing my best to advise people honestly rather than from my employers' point of view

Well, from what you've said, I'm not really sorry you're earning your living that way, and I bet the people whose claims you process fairly aren't sorry either, in fact I reckon they're probably really rather glad it's you who's processed their claim, not some zealot who thinks it's all about using small print to reject claims wherever possible.

Nice one JTG!

 

[AnMarie]

Basically, this is what saved us when ICB was made redundant - a great flexible mortgage package that we'd paid enough into to cover us for a nine month stint - also it had the added benefit of not counting as savings that could be seen by the benefits office - not in a normal bank account, but still making the equivalent of interest for us, as reducing (only slightly, obviously) the amount of interest we were paying on our mortgage. This was one of the best financial calls we ever made, I reckon.

Glad to hear that Shmu

 

[JTG]

JTG, can I ask... did you not have any kind of targets to meet, or claims ceilings you had to try and adhere to.

Did the company not have any kind of monitoring system in place that might have kept a tally of the different claims processors approve/reject rates? I mean, if you passed around 80 per cent of claims for payment, and say you had a colleague who only passed around 50 per cent of claims on for payment, would that kind of discrepancy have been picked up and queried? Was there any kind of 'quality control' whereby you'd have the claims you processed reviewed by someone else to check your decision making?

Nope.

I had my claims checked by a senior team member but I always had a damn good reason for my decisions. The thing is, once you know a policy's wording inside out it's very much easier to justify a decision one way or the other.

Edit: come to think of it, she was just as likely to look at mine and go 'oi, you should have paid this!' as vice versa. The thing is, it can be easy to misunderstand the wording of policies even if it's your job to assess the claims
made on them! I would often field a call from someone complaining at their decline decision, look at it and realise it should have gone through. Take the 12/12 exclusion period - someone would be declined because they had a pre-existing condition which reoccurred in the first 12 months of the policy. HOWEVER, the policy states that it has to have been treated/suffered symptoms etc in BOTH the 12 months before the policy inception AND the 12 months after - it isn't either/or, it's both/and. This was occasionally misunderstood even by me.

Tbh, it's often not maliciousness that gets people turning claims down, it's people on crap pay who are either not up to the job, not trained well enough or not motivated to get it right because the crap pay isn't going to make them stick around in the job. There's a whole other story in that - blame the company ultimately for just not being bothered enough, not the individuals

I really don't think companies have a claims ceiling etc, the wording of the policy is designed to tilt the odds the company's way - if you're able to claim then good luck to you and have the money. Besides, I think the actual premiums are higher than they should be so the money is made there rather than by restricting the ease of claiming.

This is a huge company though (fourth biggest banking company in the world), smaller ones may not be able to afford to bank on the odds in that way.

 

[JTG]

But it's also a cautionary tale about small print and exclusions.

If my friend had been told about the emphysema, at that time, (aside from a short bout of bronchitis) she felt fit and well enough to complete her course. She had also passed the hospital's medicals in order to be offered the job and to start work.

The point is that she had a pre-existing condition that worsened so she wasn't covered.

The point is that if a person, say, goes to their GP with frequent headaches, or back ache or whatever, gets a few painkillers, thinks nothing of it, a year later they get a mortgage and the payment protection employment, and a few months down the line it turns out that the headache or back ache was actually cancer, that's likely to be tough shit.

While someone here was (very admirably, I might add! ) prepared to pay out on claims more often than not, most people are likely to have their claims processed by zealous functionaries who will feel their prime objective is to turn claims down wherever possible.

I'm inclined to think that you can't really blame the company for not being prepared to cover against summat that's already there. It's a bet isn't it, the company is betting that you won't become unable to work by acquiring any new illnesses/conditions. Besides, the policies I worked with had 12/12 exclusion periods, ie if it was pre-existing but hadn't reoccurred in the 12 months before and after the start date then you were fine.

It is tough shit in some cases admittedly

As for zealous functionaries - haven't come across too many of them but I guess it depends on your attitude to your employers eh

 

[Shmu]

You may already know this. It may well have been said on the thread already.

But anyway, just in case, if you end up on benefits (sounds pretty unlikely from what I know of your circumstances), you don't get any housing benefit to help with your mortgage until you have been on income support etc. for 9 months, unless you took out your mortgage before 1995.

Therefore people with no provision for such an eventuality can get pretty stuffed.