While the European banking system lurches from crisis to crisis, life must go on, and more mundane matters, such as making sure your belongings are adequately insured, still need to be dealt with.

And at this time of belt-tightening, it is more important than ever to shop around for the best quotes.

So it is good to see that Tescocompare.com, the comparison website has launched a motorbike insurance comparison service, providing bikers with the opportunity to compare the motorbike deals from 22 brokers.

Uniquely, Tescocompare.com is offering a price guarantee to UK motorcyclists, (aged 19 or over,  spending £75 or more on their premium) and that the quote provided by Tescocompare.com is the cheapest available.

If you think you can get a cheaper quote elsewhere, you can call Tescocompare.com for free on 0800 089 8018 and it promises to beat the price.

The new comparison channel is also offering free legal cover worth £25 to any motorcyclist who requests a quote, even if you don’t end up buying your policy through Tescocompare.com.

The comparison site automatically searches all three levels of cover - namely fully comprehensive, third party fire & theft, and third party only. These are all accessible via on-screen tabs, so that you only need to search once.

Top tips are also available to help you keep your  premium to a minimum. Matthew Dransfield of Tescocompare.com says: “Everyone is trying to make their money go that extra mile in the credit crunch.

“Our motorbike insurance comparison service also offers tips on how to lower insurance premiums and enables motorcyclists to search for quotes on all levels of cover.”

Tescocompare.com also offers price comparison services on home insurance, mortgages, gas and electricity suppliers, credit cards and loans.

Defaqto insurance principal Mike Powell: “A lot of aggregator sites, such as comparethemarket.com, gocompare.com, lloydtsbcompare.com and confused.com have entered the motorbike insurance market.

Aggregators started with motor insurance, but some now do motorbike and van insurance as well.”

For more visit:

www.tescocompare.com

Take a look at  Defaqto’s unique  motorbike comparison service:
http://www.defaqto.com/consumer/insurance/motor/compare-motorcycle.aspx

Away from the financial markets, and assuming that we will won’t all be selling out cars next week because of a 1929-type stockmarket collapse, car insurance premiums look set to rise.

This is the view of Defaqto insurance consultant, Mike Powell, whose recently published report  on the car  insurance market, “Difficult Times Ahead,” comes to the conclusion that the current, the highly competitive level of car insurance premiums is simply unsustainable.

In 2007, insurers made a loss on motor insurance for the thirteenth consecutive year. Insurers took in £10.5bn in premiums, but with £8.2bn paid out in claims, and with the cost of administration and commissions added on, insurers made a loss of £263m last year.

According to consultants, Deloitte, insurers had to release £1bn from prior year reserves in order to stem these underwriting losses.

So why have insurers allowed this state of affirs to continue for so long? The answer, according to Mike Powell is that car owners are great for selling other insurance products to.  If you own a car, you will probably have other things you want to insure such as your house and its contents, travel, pets and so on.

Another reason is that car owners are very cost sensitive and are willing to shop around online to get the cheapest premium.  Aggregator web sites have enabled car owners to compare multiple quotes, making it difficult for insurers to raise their premiums.

However, the situation may have reached a tipping point because of the rise in personal injury claims which is costing insurers a small fortune.

Powell says: “If it continues like this, how long will insurers be able to stay in the market?

“Providers will either have to raise their premiums or withdraw from the market. In any case, cheapest is not always the best. It’s only whenyou come to make a claim that you know whether you policy is any good.”

Visit Defaqto’s unique car insurance comparison tool:
http://www.defaqto.com/consumer/insurance/motor/compare-car.aspx

Read the Defaqto guide to car insurance:
http://www.defaqto.com/consumer/insurance/motor.aspx

In the wake of the XL airline debacle last week, Post Office Travel Services is trumpeting the fact that it is one of the few travel insurance providers to include Scheduled Airline Failure (SAF) as a standard feature.

SAF cover enables customers to claim irrecoverable travel and accommodation costs paid in advance if a scheduled airline goes bust. 

The Post Office policy carries SAF cover as a standard feature, providing up to £1,500 in total for each insured person named on the policy and airline ticket. Swiftcover also offers this feature as an optional extra.

But if you paid for airlines tickets or a holiday accommodation with a credit card or a VISA debit card, the card issuer should refund your losses anyway.

It is only if you paid for your airline tickets or a package holiday via  a non VISA debit card that you will be left high and dry. 

Another risk which not all travel policies will cover is that of terorism. Defaqto has analysed the annual and single travel insurance market and discovered that while most providers would probably pay medical claims resulting from terrorism, travellers could lose out in the case of baggage and personal accident claims.
 
Mike Powell, Defaqto consultant on general insurance, says: “Our research shows that of the 976 annual and single trips analysed, only 63 per cent of policies available offer some form of protection following a terrorist incident, which leaves a significant proportion of people at risk of purchasing inadequate cover.”
 
Powell continues: “Terrorism is not always a consideration that you would even think about when purchasing your travel insurance cover, but you should check with your insurer to confirm the cover, particularly if you are travelling to countries at risk of terrorism.”

Some of the big names that include this protection  are British Airways, American Express, Cosmos, Easyjet and Endsleigh.

Visit Defaqto’s unique travel insurance comparison tool:
http://www.defaqto.com/consumer/insurance/travel/compare-single-trip.aspx

For more information on the policies mentioned above, visit:
www.postoffice.co.uk/travel
http://www.britishairways.com/travel/insurance/public/en_gb
www. americanexpress.com
https://www.easyjet4insurance.com/mawl/inside/ezy/gb?restart=
 

Insurers are under pressure to ‘treat their customers fairly’ so it is good to see Norwich Union doing just that with its revamped income protection plan which provides flexibility and strong after care service.

Income protection is an insurance which pays out if you are too ill to work for a long period. If you are so ill that you can’t ever work again, it will pay out until retirement.

You can choose the level of earnings you want to be paid while off sick. There is a selection of eight deferment periods  of between 4 and 112 weeks (the time before payments kick in) so that you can dovetail the policy with any existing cover you may have through workplace benefits or existing savings. 

The plan is also flexible in that you can choose for it to pay out until any retirement age between 50 and 70, which is good news if you intend to continue working in retirement.

Guaranteed (fixed) or reviewable premiums are available, as is indexation of benefits in line with RPI. There are also no standard exclusions.

The maximum payout is 60 per cent of the first 25,000 of annual earnings and 50 per cent of the remainder up to £180,000 -  one of the highest benefit levels in the market.

Another attractive feature is the rehabilitation service, which gives you access to trained medical staff to help you get back to work.

On the downside, if you want to extend existing cover, you may have to set up a new policy to reflect your current state of health, which could mean an increase in premiums.

Defaqto life and protection principal, Ben Heffer, says: “Where NU has something new to add is in the area of claims management, in that claims are dealt with over the phone by a dedicated team of claims advisers. Policyholders have access to an online and telephone-based health management tool, including 24 hour GP helpline and Stress Helpline.”

Income protection is a complex product and independent financial advice is strongly recommended.
To find an IFA in your area visit:
www.unbiased.co.uk

For more income protection, read the Defaqto guide:
http://www.defaqto.com/consumer/insurance/life/income-protection.aspx
 

It’s nice to see an insurance company launch a customer friendly product for a change. I’m  referring to Fortis’s Real Life protection plan, launched in conjunction with the broker, Life Search.

In  brief, Real Life incorporates seven protections - including term assurance, critical illness and income protection - all within one plan, obviating the need for the broker to sell three separate policies.

The plan works by having two pots - one for term assurance claims and one for critical illness and income  protection claims. Although not ideal, the plan has the advantage of providing broad, albeit limited, protection against death and loss of income.

Most people have some form of life cover, via with profit endowments, term assurance, whole of life policies or through workplace benefits. Far fewer people have protection against being unable to work because of long term illness.

While life cover only benefits your dependants if you die, critical illness and income protection pay the bills if you survive.

Critical illness pays you a lump sum if you survive 30 days from diagnosis of a serious illness, such as heart attack, stroke or cancer, while income protection pays you a monthly income if you are unable to work because of long term sickness.

In the case of Real Life, it works like this. Say, you buy £250,000 of life cover, there are two pots to draw on - a  £250,000 pot for term assurance, and a £250,000 pot for critical illness and income protection.

If you are diagnosed with critical illness, you can claim 12 per cent of amount in your pot, which in this case would be £30,000. You can make up to three critical illness claims, providing they are for different illnesses and there is still money in the pot.

If you make an income protection claim, it will pay out 1 per cent of the pot each month, or £2,500 in this example, until the pot runs out after eight years and four months (£2,500×100 months).

Although the income protection cover is clearly limited, the policy is a step in the right direction in that it will help close the protection gap that currently exists and the premiums are fixed for life.

As an example, a 25 year old woman office worker in normal health would pay £18.02 a month for  £100,000 of life cover up to age 60. Unless she increases the level of cover, the premium is guaranteed not to rise.

The plan is currently only sold via Life Search and Asda, but there are plans to roll it out to other brokers soon.

Matt Morris of Life Search says: “The whole point of Real Life cover is the protection it provides against all the eventualities of life. Nowadays, you are far more likely to suffer a serious illness or long term incapacity before age 65, than to die.”

For more information visit:

www.reallifecover.co.uk
www.lifesearch.co.uk
http://www.asdafinance.com/life-insurance-real-life-cover.html