Insurance. Something that we would prefer not to have to pay for. The law says we have to have car insurance. The terms of our mortgage says we have to have house insurance and mortgage protection for our home. But when no one tells us we have to have insurance on ourselves, we avoid it, […]
For members of occupational pension schemes, the maximum lump sum payable on the death of a member is four times final salary plus the value of the member’s contributions and AVC’s. Any amount over this had to be used to purchase an annuity. This meant that not many schemes with death in service benefits went […]
Sean Cox and his brother went Anfield in April 2018 to watch Liverpool’s Champions League semi final 1st leg match against Roma. It was a match Liverpool would win 5-2 after being 5-0 up. A result that had Liverpool supporters around the world celebrating. Except Sean Cox wasn’t celebrating. On his way to the ground, […]
Cohabiting couples don’t have the same rights as married couples. In today’s Ireland where lots of people want to live together but not get married, this sets them at a big disadvantage. Today, we are going to look at the case of inheritance and the family home. Potential Tax Liability In the eyes of the […]
Almost 6 years ago, I wrote an article about the terms and conditions of income protection policies. After Friends First and Aviva merged, I thought it was a good idea to read through them again to see what has changed. There are now four income protection providers in Ireland, Aviva, Irish Life, New Ireland and […]
A few weeks ago I woke up with a pain in my foot. I can’t remember doing anything to it and I walked it off, bringing the dog for his walk up the mountains near my home. The next day we headed off on holidays on the ferry to France. That night in the cabin, […]
In April 2018, I wrote about the need for life cover. In that article, I warned against the dangers of reviewable life cover contracts. Let me remind you of how these plans work. Reviewable Life Cover They are open ended life cover plans; in other words they will continue until you either die or cannot […]
I wrote about why you need income protection cover a number of years ago. But when I ask clients if they have this benefit through work, most of them haven’t a clue. They know their salary, bonus, pension alright but not the catastrophe planning benefits like life cover or income protection. The benefits that help […]
My wife went away for a couple of days last week. The first night she was gone, my 7 year old daughter was upset that her mum wasn’t there. The second night, my 10 year old son was quiet and withdrawn. He was missing his mum too. What if this was more permanent and they […]
It was reported last week that the Department of Finance is going to examine the reviewable whole of life life cover policies. I read about this on Twitter and got into a discussion with a couple of journalists, asking why the need to review a product that is largely obsolete? I was told that these […]