Self Employed? Plans On Accident and Sickness Insurance

If you are just starting out in business or have been self-employed for some time you should consider protecting not just yourself, but also your home and family against the possibility of you having an accident at work or home, or perhaps getting sick for a long time and not being able to work. Both of these risks happen every day to someone unfortunate and it would be a brave person to jeopardize their home and business when accident and sickness insurance is widely available online to purchase in an instant cover that has been specifically designed for the self-employed and would remove all those worries.

Accident insurance is always sold as a policy in conjunction with Sickness insurance. This can usually be purchased individually as what is known as a disability cover or bundled up in a group of insurance products usually known as ASU (Accident, Sickness, and Unemployment) or as Protection Insurance, commonly known as PPI.

When you purchase accident and sickness cover, you purchase levels of protection as units of what is known as a monthly benefit. So for example, if you need 1000 units of monthly cover you pay by the percentage rate cover unit determined by how old you are.

Typically a thirty-year-old in the UK who buys disability insurance from a well known independent supplier, will pay as little as GBP18 per month for a GBP1000 worth of benefits, should they get sick or have an accident, leading to missing time off work. ASU can be particularly cheap for self-employed persons if bought without the unemployment element of cover, which has significantly increased the cost of this type of cover in the near past due to the economic crisis. Working for yourself is hard enough work alone, without having to worry about where the money is going to come from to pay the bills if you have to stop your business dealings for any time due to an accident or sickness. Protection Insurance products such as mortgage, lifestyle and income protection, all offer peace of mind and cover for anyone who works for themselves or as a contractor, and is not covered by any existing employer accident compensation.

Be aware that any long-term pre-existing medical condition usually excludes you from purchasing Payment Protection Insurance or Sickness Insurance cover.

Shop around the independent providers of ASU for accident insurance, as there are always good deals to be had in this very competitive market Sickness Insurance and Accident Insurance for the self-employed can be purchased quickly online from leading UK companies. But one might want to know about critical illness factor, so here it goes…

What is critical illness insurance?

This cover is a form of protection that seeks to provide you with a lump sum payment should you be diagnosed with what is described by the policy as a critical illness.

Such a payment may come in very useful, as one of the consequences arising from a critical illness may be financial disruption to your normal routine. For example, you may not only lose your income (or find it significantly reduced) but at the same time, also find that you’re incurring additional costs for things such as medical aids or home help etc.The very last thing anyone needs when they’re critically ill is cause to start worrying about things such as bills and income.

That is why critical illness insurance exists.

What conditions are covered?

You will only be able to know this for sure, by looking at the detail contained within an individual policy or site.

As a general principle, a wide range of conditions may be covered including many of the major life-threatening conditions.

Remember though that the conditions covered may vary significantly between policies and providers – it may be advisable to look closely at the conditions covered to ensure that you’re happy that you have the cover you feel you need.

What about existing medical conditions?

Individual insurance providers may have different positions in this respect, however, typically they will exclude pre-existing conditions (or attach special conditions to them). It is extremely important that any such conditions are openly and explicitly declared at the time you take out your policy or it may prejudice a future claim.

And how many times will the policy pay out?

Typically once. This insurance is intended to cover a one-off diagnosis. There is a form of cover called serious illness insurance that may pay out several times for different multiple conditions when diagnosed. Once again, sites such as criticalillnessinsurance.com may prove to be useful in outlining the differences.

Is such insurance cost-effective?

Both the cover provided and the prices of policies will vary.

A sensible selection process would involve balancing the two against your requirements, however, in the case of any insurance, it may be difficult to define what cost-effective actually means. You may sincerely hope that you never need to call upon your critical illness insurance but knowing it is there, may prove to be priceless for your peace of mind.