The effects of the ongoing pandemic are being felt by families across the UK. It is a difficult time as many families are facing a reduction or loss of income.
According to the Institute for Social and Economic Research, on average, families are £515 a month worse off. In such uncharted waters, with no clear map, it is only natural for people to think about their current and future financial arrangements.
As your Mortgage & Protection specialist, I just wanted to let you know that we are here, available and ready to support you. We have access to great technology solutions that allow us to review and arrange your finances securely without having to arrange a face to face meeting.
We want to make sure that you are informed, reassured and have the peace of mind knowing that you have the financial planning in place to ensure that you are financially resilient during the current crisis.
With this in mind, we wanted to reiterate a few things you might like to think about in order to limit the financial impact on you:
Mortgages: Mortgage lenders are offering payment holidays. This is great so long as you don’t have any arrears and are prepared to extend your mortgage by the length of the payment holiday (most lenders add the debt onto the end of the term) but are you sure you have the best interest rate available to you? In light of the recent Bank of England interest rate drop, lots of lenders have changed their rates. If you don’t have the best rate, your monthly payments may be much higher than they need to be.
You may wish to consider remortgaging to take advantage of potentially lower interest rates or to release some equity from your property (subject to lenders’ affordability checks). Give us a call and we can investigate this for you.
Protection Insurance: We would be very happy to provide you with a review of your existing insurance products to ensure that you have the most appropriate cover in place. If you don’t have any life insurance, critical illness or income protection insurance, then now is the time. In some cases, people will die and without the relevant protection insurance in place to protect their mortgage or to replace their income, then it won’t just be Coronavirus causing financial difficulties for the family left behind. Call us now to ensure you are looking after the financial protection of yourself and your loved ones.
Buildings & contents insurance: The nation is working from home – does your buildings & contents insurance allow this? What if your child, who is home from school, accidentally spills a drink on the shiny new laptop your company have provided to enable you to self-isolate? Who is liable?
Some insurance policies allow administrative working from home, but not all – please check your policies, or better still, ask us to. If you don’t currently have any cover in place, then please let us know so we can get this arranged for you. This can be all done over the phone and we can get you a policy on risk within just a few hours.
The nation is in uncharted waters that will impact us all. We hope that we can support you in these uncertain times.
