Adrian Garside

I was speaking to a client yesterday and she commented that she needed to tell the people who provide their life inusrance that her partner has diabetes. She doesn’t.

Life Insurance

For Life Insurance (and Critical Illness & Income Protection) they work on the principle that the information they hold on you must be correct at the time the policy starts.

So, if you applied last week, but haven’t started the policy yet, and something happens you must tell the insurance company. If you’ve started paying premiums already, and your health changes, well that is OK… I mean, from the insurance company point of view.

Usually these policies have guaranteed premiums for a set term. Some have reviewable premiums and if you are thinking of taking a reviewable policy out you should check that the reviews are age dependent only – so no health questions asked. They usually are, but check.  Avoid a policy that checks your health again part way through – it could become seriously expensive just at the point when you need it.

Catching up on Missed Premiums

If you miss a payment or two but really want to keep the cover running, the insurance company will ask you to complete a ‘Declaration of continued good health’ – complete this honestly – technically the inusrance has stopped and you are starting it again, so it is like applying again. If there is a fair time between applying for the insurance and starting it they will aslo ask for one of these forms to be completed.

For Life Insurance, if you are starting a policy again, then it’s worth casting around to see what premiums are like these days – premium rates are considerably lower than they were a few years ago.

For Critical Illness Insurance, the older policies are better than newer ones, so it is likely to be better to try to keep the older policy running if you can.

Car Insurance

When you renew your policy, car insurance companies alwasy ask you every details again – this is becuase they need to know. If you get a new car, get a speeding ticket, change your estimated annual mileage, mod your car, tell them – better safe than sorry.

Travel Insurance

If you pay for this annually and your health chnages, yes tell them. And if you plan on doing sports on holiday, tell them.

Household Insurance

If you buy new stuff that has value, tell them – better safe than sorry. Usually there are limits where they are uninterested, but as a guide I would tell them about anything you buy worth over £500 – you’ll soon find out if their limit is higher.

photo credit: Catholic Aid Assoc

LOL, I searched for ‘insurance’ on the royalty free photo website… this isn’t the kind of insurance I recommend, but I do know some who do…

Earlier today, someone found my blog by searching for ‘divorce critical illness payout’.

This is an awkward topic, as an adviser, it’s tricky to raise this as a subject with a married couple, but it is something that affects my advice. And later, in the event of divorce, it is even more awkward.

With most insurances people decide which one wants to keep the policy (if either do) and the other signs away their interest in the policy – with life insurance this is quite common and endowments as well, usually there is an exchange of cash as well when it’s endowments. Pensions as well, in divorce can be split according to the agreement made by both parties.

With most joint critical illness policies it gets complicated. A joint policy will usually pay out once only – on the 1st event of either Mr or Mrs Smith becoming critically ill and then the policy stops. They usually pay out on death too…and then the policy stops.

So, we have considerations:

Firstly we have ‘old definitions’ – old policies have illnesses that used to be critical, but as medical knowledge has progressed those illness have become run of the mill and not critical, or if it’s not the illness itself, the definition is ‘claimable’ at what is now a non critical stage. Essentially, old policies are better than new.

Secondly we have the money issue – someone has to pay the premium, and they will expect the pay out. This is not a problem in the event of death of the other party, that will still be a payout and I don’t suppose anyone will contest it. And it’s not a problem if the payer becomes ill, they’ll just take the payout. But what if the other person becomes critically ill – proving they are ill will require their co-operation.

There is a partial solution – some companies will split a policy in the event of a divorce – although some require medical evidence to be provided and so may decline one party or the other and some also required a new mortgage to be taken out. If it’s happening to you, this is worth investigating.

If this isn’t an option, then I suggest you make your agreement at the time of the divorce – negotiating cash payouts on a partners critical illness is never going to look ‘seemly’.

For me, I usually recommend 2 single life policies, I explain this is because there is potential for 2 payouts. This is another ‘background’ reason though.

In the September issue of … one of the leading consumer magazine’s… they have reviewed Broadband providers this month and awarded 4 of them ‘Recommended Provider’ status.

Utility Warehouse, Zen, Be and O2 were the 4 to recieve the award.

The criteria assessed were value for money,  connection speed and reliability, and customer service.

Apart from great service, reliability, value for money and speed, Utility Warehouse Discount Club can also save you money on your household shopping and petrol, as well as on their gas, electricity, landlines and mobiles.

photo credit: aithom2

Dentists always tell you to floss, but flossing has to be the least enjoyable experience on earth. I’d rather rub my eyes shortly after chopping a chili (which I did yesterday).

However, my dentist suggested I try tepe sticks instead of the fishing wire flossing stuff – these are like tiny pixie bottle brushes that you use between your teeth and they are excellent. For me, it’s a huge relief that they exist, given my antipathy towards floss.

I recommend them, in my expert capacity as a daily tooth user.

They are available from most chemists – but I suggest ebay…if you want to save some cash…

Sorry, couldn’t find a photo of a tepe stick that was royalty free, so I thought a stuffed moose would be a good substitute.

photo credit: smemon87

I’ve just heard on Radio 5live that EDF are putting their electricity prices up by 2.6%

This seems a bit out of the blue, I wonder if they are the 1st in a trend?

2.6% isn’t a very big increase – although I guess that may depend on which of their tariffs you are on. You choose, out of this lot:

Annual fix version 1

Annual fix version 2

Annual fix version 2 (original)

Annual fix version 3

Annual fix version 3 (up until Jul 2010)

Annual fix version 4

Climate Balance

Eco 20:20

Eco Manager

Energy Assist

Energy Discount Plan

Energy Discount Plan Version 2

Energy Discount Plan version 3

Energy Saver

Fixed Price 2015

Fixed Price until 31/7/2010

Green

Online s@ver version 1

Online s@ver version 2

Online s@ver version 3

Online s@ver version 4

Online s@ver version 5

Online s@ver version 6

Online s@ver version 7

Online Version 1

Online Version 2

Online Version 3

Online Version 4

Online Version 5

Online Version 6

Price Guarantee 2010

Price Protection 2010

Standard

That’s just their electricity tariffs…

If you are with EDF and have been for more than 6 months, what are the chances that you are on their cheapest rate? And if you are on their cheapest rate, how long do you think that will remain the case? And, don’t think I’m picking on EDF, they are not the worst.

Wouldn’t you prefer to be with a provider who’s old customers are on the same tariff as the ones that join this week?

Contact me, I may be able to save you 2 things – money (obviously), and the headache of swapping provider every 6 months.

photo credit: Artis.Rozentāls

No? Nor me.

But, it seems people do – according to this article in the Telegraph . Mmmm – I’ve just visited the website of the bakery – Hobbs and I can see why they are tempted!

The funny thing is though – £21 for a loaf of bread seems extraordinary enough to talk about and I bet, like me, you are tempted, but in a ‘nose pressed against the sweetshop window’ fashion – you want one, but you know you can’t because it’s silly.

I have two main types of customer, those that want me to do something – arrange a pension or a mortgage or something like that. And the other types are those that know they have a load of direct debits to insurance companies, but don’t really know what they are for.

For the second group (and often the 1st) when I look at what people spend on their insurances, ISA’s, pensions, utilities and mortgages; saving £20pm is often easy and sometimes I can save people a great deal more than that. I’ll use me as an example – my business phone used to cost me over £100pm, now it costs about £20 – £25 most months. I could have 3 of those loaves every month just on my phone bill saving.

This may be because it is what I do – for me, all the information is available and I know how to assess the best products, I know the ones where cheapest really is best, or where spending a couple of £ extra is good value. No call centres will baffle me, or try to ‘upsell’ and so the process is easy.

I can do this for you. I will visit you at home, look through your stuff, tell you what can be done and if you want me to, sort it out.

For blog readers, I will cover any expenses that I have for this. If I can save you £20pm you can invite me round afterwards for a sandwich made with £21 bread…

photo credit: bterrycompton

At last, after a few weeks rain, the soil has become workable, so we (Di on this occassion) dug a section. Before you imagine I was supervising, I was pulling up the bank of nettles that had grown…Although I had gloves (90% effective) a T shirt was probably not the best protective gear for the job and my arms were tingling for the rest of the day.

I had some strawberry polants in a big pot at home and it had started firing off babies on runners – so, each baby was given a pot to grow in, and I had 19 baby strawberry plants to stick in the allotment – a job done and hopefully a good crop next year.

There was a consequence to this – I look like I’ve got miniature crop circles in my lawn – where the pots have sat in the grass all summer – the central pot, with lots (well, 19) little circles.

AC/DC did the theme tune for Ironman – you knew that, right?

Here’s a promo video shot at Rochester Castle – I’ve never seen anything like it.

One of the partners called 118118 twice last month – both calls cost £4.50.

That’s a lesson learnt then! It turns out they charge £2pm.

One of the cheapest, if not the cheapest is 118888 – it does the same service at less than half the price – 95p per minute. Hang on – are you with me on this – that is still ridiculously expensive. In fact, as far as I can tell, all the directory enquiry services cost this kind of money

There is a free service – 0800 118 3733 – you have to put up with some adverts, and it’s a robot you talk to, not an human, but I can put up with that compared with the knowledge that it costs about 50p to say ‘No, I can phone them myself thanks’.

photo credit: Ben Husmann

You see that photo?

I’m allowed to use it. Someone else – Ben – took the photo, but has agreed that people can use it as long as they give him due credit…and you see, I have.

I have been learning about this recently – a website that I know has had a bill through for £8000 from Getty Images for using photo’s that apparently don’t have permission – fortunately, it’s the website builder’s problem, not theirs, but the story did cause my buttocks to clench.

Because I built and run this website.

For a long while I inserted any old photo into my blog as long as it was pretty – it’s easy to find them, just search google for something and select images.

Now, I learnt about licences a while back and since then have been using licenced photo’s, but I have never worried about the old images. Funnily enough, after hearing the story, I have found the motivation to do that and over the last 2 evenings I have been through all three hundred and something blog entries editting the photo’s.

The blog looks a bit duller now, well the old bit does, but I can sleep easy.