When it comes to life assurance, navigating through the many options can be a difficult task. Whether it's mortgage protection, term cover, convertible term, whole of life insurance or the other types of policies available in Ireland today, understanding each policy's specifics is crucial. Here's a straightforward guide to help you make sense of these options and understand why expert advice is essential.

Mortgage Protection
Think of mortgage protection like a safety net specifically designed for your mortgage. If you or your spouse pass away, this policy pays off your remaining mortgage, so your family won’t have to worry about monthly payments during a difficult time. The amount of cover decreases over time, tracking closely with the decreasing balance of your mortgage. This type of insurance is usually the minimum cover required by banks when you take out a mortgage.

Term Cover
Term cover is cover for a fixed period, say 10, 20, or 30 years. If you pass away during this period, the policy pays out the cover amount to your beneficiaries. After that, the cover ceases. It’s straightforward and generally less expensive than other options, as it’s for a fixed period and doesn’t accumulate any cash value. Term cover is a good fit if you’re looking for a simple, budget-friendly way to protect your family during your working years.

Convertible Term
Convertible term insurance starts out like regular term cover, but it comes with an added benefit — you can convert it into another policy at the end of the term, without having to undergo another medical exam. This is especially valuable if your health changes, and obtaining new life insurance might either be prohibitively expensive or impossible. While only slightly more expensive than basic term cover, it gives you flexibility and peace of mind, knowing that you can opt for extended cover at the end of the term, without any hassle.

Whole of Life
Whole of life insurance is intended to last for your entire life, providing a guaranteed pay-out when you pass away, not just if you die during a specified term. This cover doesn’t expire as long as you pay the premiums, and in some cases it may also accumulate a cash value over time. Some Whole of Life policies have premiums that are guaranteed never to change, while the premium is reviewable on other polices. Expert advice is crucial. Whole of Life cover is more expensive than term cover, but it can be a powerful tool for long-term financial planning.

The key is getting good advice
As you can see, life assurance isn’t a one-size-fits-all product. Choosing the right type depends on a myriad of factors including your financial goals, your family’s needs, your health, and your future plans. This is where professional financial advice becomes invaluable. We take the time to understand your unique situation and guide you through choosing a policy that aligns with your life goals, whether that's providing for your family, securing your home, or planning for your estate. Our expertise helps ensure that you don’t just have any policy, but the right policy.

Contact us and let’s make sure your life assurance strategy supports your overall financial well-being, giving you peace of mind that your loved ones are protected.

​The health and welfare of your business partner is a really important factor in your financial planning. After all, they have probably been working alongside you since you came up with the idea for your business. They also have shared the highs and lows as your business survived those difficult early years, and hopefully has grown as time went on. Your partner has shared the stresses and strains, and hopefully together you’ve built a business you’re both proud of. It wouldn’t have been the same, or indeed may not have happened without them.

One of the more important business activities of any company owner or partnership is the whole area of risk management. So what do you think about when you think of something “going wrong”? Is it a fire in a warehouse, an accident involving a company vehicle, maybe somebody tripping and falling in one of your retail outlets? Is it someone suing you for poor performance in your business activities? These are all areas where businesses build contingency plans or put insurance in place.

However, research in the UK has shown that 52% of businesses would cease trading in under a year if a key person died or became critically ill.* This is a risk that you must manage, and thankfully there are solutions available to do just that.

Business Protection
There is a range of business protection solutions available to help businesses survive the death or indeed the serious illness of someone whose loss would result in a financial hit for a business. These solutions provide several benefits for businesses.
• They offer real peace of mind benefits to the directors or partners as they remove the financial worries associated with the death or serious illness of a colleague.
• They remove the need for businesses or surviving partners to borrow money to buy out their partner’s share of the business.
• They remove the need for a surviving family member to take the deceased’s place in the business.
There are a number of different types of business protection solutions available to suit the different types of business structures.

Co-director’s insurance
Each director insures themselves against the death of their co-director, enabling them to buy out their co-director’s shares on death, and serious illness if they wish. As an alternative, the insurance can be put in place by the company itself.
Partnership insurance
Similar to the above, a partnership takes out insurance, protecting itself against the death or serious illness of an individual partner, enabling them to compensate the deceased partner’s estate for their share of the partnership.
Key person insurance
This helps a business to minimise the impact of the death or serious illness of a key employee. The insurance can be used to quickly attract a replacement employee or indeed to pay off any loans of the company that may have been guaranteed by the deceased.

​The key to finding the right solution is getting the right advice. And that’s where we come in. If protecting the future of your business is a concern to you, please give us a call and we can walk you through your options. 

There are approximately 349,500 people in Ireland who work as stay-at-home parents – and the vast majority of these (94%) are women*. The work they do is invaluable for their families and irreplaceable for the community, yet more than 8 in 10 people agree that the role of the stay-at-home parent is either under-supported or undervalued by society in Ireland. This is according to the findings of a new survey from the rapidly growing life and pensions provider, Royal London Ireland.

The nationwide survey of 1,000 participants in Ireland sought to understand people’s perception of the value of stay-at-home parents. In addition to this, Royal London Ireland compared these perceptions with their own research into the monetary value of the homemaker. The survey revealed that 93% of people underestimate the financial value of the stay-at-home parent. According to the life and pension provider’s calculations, which are based on real-world wage data, the cost to employ someone to do the ‘duties’ performed by stay-at-home mams and dads would be an estimated €53,480 per annum. Despite this, survey participants estimated the potential ‘salary’ of the stay-at-home parent at an average of €28,460 per year.

Commenting on the findings, Royal London Ireland said,
“While the role of the stay-at-home parent could be described as ‘priceless’, it is interesting to gauge the public’s perception of its value through our annual survey. It seems people continue to undervalue the role, pitching it at €28,460 which is similar to last year’s estimate by survey respondents of approximately €28,000**. It is also well below what we have calculated as the economic cost in 2022, which is €53,480.”

Highlights from the Royal London Ireland Stay-at-home Parent Survey included:

• 61% of survey respondents believe people in Ireland value the role of the stay-at-home parent.
• 43% of respondents believe most people value the role of the stay-at-home parent, but society as a whole doesn’t provide enough support to those in this position.
• 39% of people say Irish society doesn’t put enough value on the role of homemaker.
• More women (88%) than men (75%) believe that the role of the stay-at-home parent is either under-appreciated or under-supported by society.
• 18% of people think Irish society holds the role of the homemaker in high esteem.
• People estimated the value of the stay-at-home parent’s salary to be on average €28,460.
• 31% of people estimated the stay-at-home parent’s ‘salary’ to be €20,000 or less. Only 12% estimated it to be between €40,000 - €50,000, and just 8% of people estimated it to be more than €50,000.

Royal London went on to say,
“While 18% of people believe the role of the stay-at-home parent is held in high esteem by Irish society, it’s interesting to see that a large majority (82%) believe homemakers are not supported enough or valued by society.
“What is somewhat less surprising, given that this role is predominantly filled by females, is that more women than men (88% vs 75%) believe that Irish society doesn’t support or value the contributions of stay-at-home parents. This is despite the number of stay-at-home dads more than doubling in the 10 years from 2009 to 2019, rising from 7,000 to 19,900.*”

The Costs
Royal London Ireland considered a list of duties usually carried out by stay-at-home parents, before researching the cost of employing someone to do these jobs. The duties  are ones that parents carry out on a weekly basis such as cooking, cleaning, driving children to their various activities and so on. The calculations reveal that the annual cost to employ someone to do the household jobs usually completed by a stay-at-home parent would be an estimated €53,480.

“While the duties and responsibilities that fall upon stay-at-home parents will vary from family to family, we have run some calculations of how much it would cost to replace someone in this role.  Interestingly, our evaluation of the cost is more than the €48,946 reported by the CSO as the average annual earnings of a person in full-time employment. Our figures reveal that it could cost approximately €53,000, if not more, per year. And when we asked our survey respondents how much they think it would cost to employ someone to perform the duties of a stay-at-home parent, most under-estimated it, by thousands.”
According to the survey, the majority of people (81%) estimated the stay-at-home parent’s ‘salary’ to be €40,000 or less (see Appendix). While 12% of people estimated it to be between €40,000 - €50,000, and just 8% of people estimated it to be €50,000 or more.

Royal London concluded,
“It’s understandable that, without doing the calculations, many people may not accurately estimate what the cost would be to replace the stay-at-home parent. What is surprising, is just how much they undervalue it by. An accurate evaluation of this cost, from a financial planning perspective, is an important figure to contemplate by every family. If a stay-at-home parent was to pass away unexpectedly, their loved ones could be left with a large financial gap to fill during what would already be a very difficult time. And while money can never replace a parent, having adequate financial protection in place can help provide families with a financial safety net to meet some of these parenting costs."

We can help you understand how much and what type of financial protection you might need.