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I have worked in the same company as my partner for a number of years. In fact we have both worked there for longer. However we only started dating after a number of years and yes, I should have made a move earlier but I didn’t. Nor did she, so we are equally to blame for not starting the rest of our lives earlier. Still, as they say, you can’t change the past so I’m not going to beat myself up too much; suffice to say, I wish I had. Society would describe me as a professional, like my partner and we live a pretty comfortable life with a number of holidays and have savings to fall back upon should the need arise. Financially I have always tried to keep a tight ship and regularly review my spending, keeping abreast of any new savings policies that have been released, trying to utilise my tax free allowance that the chancellor allows in the budget. I have spoken to both my parents and my partner’s parents about possible inheritance tax liabilities and the best ways of mitigating any potential liabilities there are, given the increased likelihood of their deaths before ours. However, where I feel I do make most of an impact on things is to keep an eye on where we have arrangements for our regular outgoings. Clearly our major outgoing is our joint mortgage and fortunately we have a tracker mortgage which has allowed us to enjoy relatively low monthly payments for some years now. I also keep an eye on the comparison websites such as life insurance compare to check on the cost of gas and electricity providers and telephone and broadband providers.

Source: http://www.lifeinsurancecompare.uk.com/blog/2011/12/09/i-use-life-insurance-compare-website-see-if-im-paying-too-much/

Running my own reprographics business has been a roller coaster since I set the business up some three years ago having been made redundant by my previous company after having worked there for a number of years. I had worked there since leaving college and picked the business up well enough that I began to feel that I had outgrown the company by the end, so the news that I was being let go was something of a relief. To move from where I was then to the situation I find myself in now has been a journey not without problems, but more of a journey of self discovery. I have always been relatively conservative in my spending habits but since the advent of price comparison websites it has made the job of being financially astute completely accessible to everyone. I am able to organise my finances from my home computer to arrange loans, pay wages and bills and permanent health cover and transfer entire documents to clients at the click of a mouse. The accessibility of these comparison sites on the internet has meant that the man or woman in the street can check the prices of what they are paying against the prices they should be paying.

My mother has just passed away so needless to say things are a bit bad at the moment. The family and I were trying to find where she kept her personal papers and we were surprised to find that she had a life assurance policy. I know she had always remarked about the importance of life assurance and by comparison her own twin sister had died a pauper. We found it almost impossible to make contact with the insurer who gave little if any kind of procedure to make a claim. Apparently she could have put the insurance cover in her children’s names so there wouldn’t have been so much bother. My own daughter is currently buying her first property and has managed to find a life assurance comparison site which offers a whole of market service. I think I’ll check with her and see if I need to do something as well, It can be a nightmare for those left behind to sort it out.

A new menu-based online Life Assurance plan has been set up by ProProtect. To reduce costs, some features of the PruProtect plan are not available with the essentials plan.

To help you in conducting a life assurance comparison exercise, the essentials plan comprises core serious illness cover and level, decreasing or index-linked life cover, unemployment cover and income protection.

These include automatic child serious-illness cover, a guaranteed insurability option for life cover, serious-illness cover and disability cover, optional serious-illness cover for children and immediate cover. However, policyholders can upgrade to the full PruProtect cover at any time.

The essentials plan takes the same severity-based approach to cover as the PruProtect plan so that people are covered for serious illnesses and partial disabilities, not just critical conditions.

The severity-based nature of the plan means that policyholders may get a percentage of the benefit rather than the full cost. This means that payments can be made at an earlier stage of the illness, even if it is not life-threatening.

Essentials provides a great deal of flexibility in that policy holders have a choice on many aspects of their cover such as guaranteed or reviewable premiums, single or joint life, whole life or fixed term and waiver of premium on death, serious illness or capacity.

However, the products could seem complicated due to its flexibility and wide range of options.

A new menu-based online Life Assurance plan has been set up by ProProtect.  To reduce costs, some features of the PruProtect plan are not available with the essentials plan.

To help you in conducting a life assurance comparison exercise, the essentials plan comprises core serious illness cover and level, decreasing or index-linked life cover, unemployment cover and income protection.

These include automatic child serious-illness cover, a guaranteed insurability option for life cover, serious-illness cover and disability cover, optional serious-illness cover for children and immediate cover.  However, policyholders can upgrade to the full PruProtect cover at any time.

The essentials plan takes the same severity-based approach to cover as the PruProtect plan so that people are covered for serious illnesses and partial disabilities, not just critical conditions.

The severity-based nature of the plan means that policyholders may get a percentage of the benefit rather than the full cost.  This means that payments can be made at an earlier stage of the illness, even if it is not life-threatening.

Essentials provides a great deal of flexibility in that policy holders have a choice on many aspects of their cover such as guaranteed or reviewable premiums, single or joint life, whole life or fixed term and waiver of premium on death, serious illness or capacity.

However, the products could seem complicated due to its flexibility and wide range of options.