Tag Archives: Investment

How to know if you need Life Insurance

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We’ve all heard of Life Insurance, but as it’s based on your own individual situation, knowing whether or not you need this cover can be confusing. To make things a little easier, the following steps outline a few of the most common scenarios in which having a Life Insurance policy is beneficial, and will help you decide if you need this type of Life cover too.
If you’re a parent:
If you’re a parent or about to be one you might want to consider taking out Life Insurance. Being a parent doesn’t come cheap – in the UK the estimated cost for raising a child from birth to age 11 comes in at a staggering £84,000 (or £110,500) and that’s all before college and university fees! If you were to pass away, these costs would not go away – your children would still need to be provided for. A Life Insurance policy would make this possible and, in paying a lump sum to your beneficiaries upon your death, it would provide welcome help with the ongoing costs involved in parenthood.

If you’ve got a mortgage:
If you’re a mortgage holder you may also want to consider Life Insurance, especially if this is shared with another person. In the event of your death, mortgage payments would still need to be met which, without your contribution, could put unimaginable financial pressure on the co-mortgage-owner. The lump sum payout from your Life Insurance policy could help alleviate the financial burden of this, helping to cover the monthly payments or even pay-off the mortgage entirely.

If you have any loans:
If you have any loans, such a car loan, a Life Insurance policy may also be beneficial. Like mortgage repayments, in the event of your death, these payments would not simply go away. A Life insurance policy could be used to pay this off so that your dependants would not be lumbered with the financial responsibility of these repayments.

If you’re self-employed:
If you’re self-employed a Life Insurance policy is a employee benefit you’re not likely to privilege from. Most companies provide some sort of life assurance for employees and whether it’s a death in service benefit or Life Insurance, these company perks can provide the necessary financial support for loved ones during an already difficult time. If however you’re self-employed, it’s unlikely you’ve put this protection in place for yourself. A Life Insurance policy would thus ensure you would receive the same protection as your company-employed counterparts.
Top Tips:
Your motivation for buying life insurance will provide a good indicator of how long you need cover for. If, for example, it’s for your children’s college fund, once they’ve graduated, this cover may no longer be needed.
Consider taking a joint life insurance if you share mortgage repayments with another person.
Even if you’re not self-employed and are covered by employer benefits, it’s also worth considering taking out a separate Life Insurance policy. For example if you ended up switching jobs, you may lose this privilege and thus would not have any sort of protection in place.
Do your research, compare quotes from a range of different sites and consider a discount broker to help bring your premiums down.

Should Your Insurance Company Offer Cyber Protection?

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Cyber security has become a growing concern for U.S. companies over the past couple of years, and for good reason. Information breaches have not only become increasingly common, but also much larger. Nothing illustrates the state of modern web security quite as well as the most recent breach, which saw hackers target the IRS by exploiting faulty security to compromise over 100,000 taxpayer records.
Similar breaches have also affected much smaller companies, and it’s common to see a forward-thinking insurance company racing to adapt. Here is what you need to know to determine if, first, you’re actually in need of cyber insurance and, second, what you should look for in a policy.

Are You At Risk?

If you work with customer information of any kind, then the answer is likely yes. The term to look out for here is Personally Identifiable Information, or PII. It’s not a technical term, but rather a legal term that carries some teeth if you have to deal with it.

At its root, PII is any piece of collected information that could potentially allow a third party to identify a business’s individual clients. Given how good the Internet is at leveraging even tiny hints to track down a person, that definition is awfully broad. Full names, email addresses, site nicknames, and (sometimes) even web cookies can all qualify as PII.

If you’re storing anything that falls under the PII umbrella, you’re at risk of a breach. Breaches are enormously costly, both for affected customers and for the company responsible for the loss. Companies in the healthcare and retail industries are obviously at an increased risk, but when it comes down to it, any business that makes a habit of collecting information should ask their insurance company about cyber policies.

What Your Cyber Policy Needs

You’ll need to look for a few things in any cyber insurance policy. As you may expect, a good policy should cover the financial damages directly caused by a breach. However, cyber attacks can cause financial damage in a wide variety of ways. In particular, make sure that your company is protected against:

- Losses caused by lost time and productivity. A major hack can cause company gears to grind to a halt. Find an insurance company that guarantees coverage for the revenue lost during this period. – Indemnification caused by a third party. Few modern companies handle their data on their own. Outsourced IT support or other companies can fall victim to a breach that affects your customers. – Loss of Reputation. Breached companies, even those that have done their due diligence, almost always take a PR hit in the wake of an attack. A good policy offers some cushioning against the customer losses that generally ensue.

Finally, also try your best to work with an insurance company that has an educational component. Some plans will also come with training to avoid a breach. As nice as protection is, it’s safe to say that it’s best left unused. Installing a set of best practices can help keep you from having to rely on a safety net in the first place.