Family and income protection, built around your life.
Life cover, critical illness and income protection — sized to your real responsibilities, written into trust where it matters, and reviewed when your circumstances change.
The cover most people have doesn’t fit them.
A bundled life policy at mortgage completion. A workplace death-in-service that’ll disappear if you leave. A critical illness policy bought ten years ago that no longer covers your circumstances. Protection done piecemeal almost always ends up too small, too expensive, or paid to the wrong person.
Protection done properly starts from the other end: what would actually happen if your income stopped tomorrow? How long would the family carry on as they are? What needs to be paid off, and what needs to keep coming in?
From there, we work backwards into the right cover, the right policy types, and the right ownership structure — often through trusts — so the money lands where it’s supposed to.
The wrong cover is worse than no cover.
Because it costs money every month and gives false confidence that you’re sorted.
With properly planned cover
- Cover amount sized against actual liabilities and income needs
- Life, critical illness and income protection working together — not duplicating
- Policies written into trust to keep payouts out of the estate for IHT
- Whole-of-market quotes — not a single insurer’s panel
- Definitions checked carefully — especially on critical illness
- Reviewed when life changes — new baby, new mortgage, business sale
Bundled or no cover
- Cover sized to the mortgage, with nothing left for living costs
- Critical illness policies that don’t pay out for the conditions you’d actually face
- No income protection — the cover you’re most likely to need
- Policy paid out into the estate, then 40% lost to IHT
- Death-in-service that vanishes when you change jobs
- The same policy still in place 10 years after the family situation changed
Strategy, not product pushing.
A four-step process that’s the same for every client — though the conclusions never are.
Understand your situation
Who depends on your income, what would need to be paid off, what your existing cover (workplace and personal) already provides.
Size and structure the cover
How much, what type, who owns it, who benefits. Trusts considered where they keep payouts out of the estate.
Arrange the right policies
Whole-of-market quotes, underwriting handled, trust paperwork drawn up. Every recommendation explained in writing.
Keep it relevant
New child, new mortgage, business growth, separation, inheritance — any of these can change what cover should look like.
Things people often ask.
How much cover do I actually need?
It depends on what would need to keep happening if your income stopped — the mortgage, school fees, household bills, the kids’ future. The calculation isn’t complex, but it’s rarely just “cover the mortgage”, which is what most people end up with.
What’s the difference between life and critical illness?
Life cover pays out on death. Critical illness pays out if you’re diagnosed with a serious illness on the policy’s definition list — cancer, heart attack, stroke and so on. You can hold both, often as a combined policy.
Is income protection worth it?
For most working-age clients, it’s the most under-rated cover there is. You’re statistically far more likely to be off work for an extended period than to die during your career — and income protection covers that gap while you recover.
What does writing a policy in trust mean?
Putting the policy into trust means the payout goes directly to your chosen beneficiaries rather than into your estate. It avoids probate delays and (for life cover) typically avoids inheritance tax on the payout too.
Will I have to do a medical?
Usually it’s a written application with medical questions. Sometimes an insurer will ask for a GP report or a brief medical — depends on your age, the sum assured and what you disclose. We manage that side with you.
What if I already have some cover?
We start with what you’ve got, check the policy details properly, and only recommend changes where the existing cover genuinely falls short or has hidden problems. No churning for the sake of it.
Let’s start with a conversation.
An initial protection review is without obligation. Often the result is fewer policies, better-structured, costing less — not more cover for the sake of it.