Laptop Insurance

With unemployment still rising, unemployment cover should be a serious consideration for many employed workers in the UK. It used to be the case that if you lost your job, you could pretty much walk into another job, even if you did have to take a pay cut, but now there can be over 100 applicants for a single vacancy.

Unemployment cover usually pays out a monthly benefit after a deferred period. The deferred period can be up to six months, and as little as 30 days, and the benefit can be paid monthly until you return to work, or for up to 2 years which ever happens sooner. Some unemployment insurance policies will cover you up to a percentage of your salary. In most cases this is about 50%. Others will cover you up to a percentage of your mortgage payment, again this varies from provider to provider, but is usually between 100% and 150% of the mortgage payment.

More flexible unemployment insurance policies will cover you up to a set amount, and not link it to your salary or mortgage payment. For example, if you earned £1,000 per month, you could still potentially cover yourself for your full income, and the benefits are usually tax free.

If you have already received notification that there will be redundancies in your department or company, it is too late to take out this type of insurance. It can be compared to trying to take out home insurance whilst a burglar is climbing through the window. If you would suffer financially if you were to lose your income, it is important to consider taking out this type of insurance whilst you can.

A major consideration when taking out unemployment insurance is the exclusion period. This is how long the policy needs to be running before you can make a claim. This stops applications where the policy holder takes out the insurance because they know they will be made unemployed imminently. The exclusion period can be anywhere from 30 days to six months, and we strongly recommend that you take a policy with a short exclusion period. There would be nothing worse than having a policy in force for ten weeks, and then being told you were being made redundant and then finding out your policy has a 90 day exclusion period! What a waste of money.

There are a few policies out there with a 30 day exclusion period, so if you get offered a policy with worse terms than this, it would do you no harm to continue searching for a more suitable policy.