Safeguarding future income against sickness and providing financial protection for you and your family against a critical illness or death can too easily be postponed. Unfortunately, if the unexpected happens it is too late and, with changing working patterns, fewer people can rely on their employer for more than short term help. Intelligent Investments can guide you through the options and select the most cost effective and most suitable policy for you.   Ask yourself these questions:   Who will pay the family bills if I were to die? How would I manage financially if I fell sick for a long time? For how long would my employer continue paying income? Would a cash sum help if I were diagnosed with cancer or similar serious illness? Life Assurance Wherever you live in the world, most people prefer not to think about life without their partner. Yet every day many families suffer the loss of a parent.   These days, most people have life cover in place, to cover a mortgage for example, but in many cases there is little else left to provide for the family's future.   Nothing can make up for the loss of a loved one. However, the last thing a surviving partner, and any children, need at such a time is the worry of how to survive the loss financially - to clear immediate debts and secure an income for the future.Not just the basics of everyday living such as food, heating (or cooling), and clothing, but the extras we often to for granted can suddenly become unaffordable. How to pay for the annual holiday, music and sports lessons, school trips - all of these can become problems if not taken into consideration.   Critical Illness Thanks to advances in medical science, more and more people are surviving illnesses which in the past would probably have proved fatal. Many people have friends or relatives who have suffered a heart attack or cancer but, with the right treatment and lots of rest, have made an excellent recovery. Great news of course, but what happens to the family finances in the meantime?   Whatever your age or circumstances, a critical illness could have catastrophic effect on your financial health. If you are unable to work whilst you were recovering or perhaps were never able to work again, all your financial commitments, such as mortgage repayments, would still continue.   You may already have some protection, perhaps in the form of life assurance, but this will only provide benefit if you die from a critical illness, not if you survive.   Income Replacement There's never a right time for falling seriously ill or being involved in an accident. It is never part of the picture, never planned but it can happen to anyone.   When illness brings you to a stop, it can rapidly bring your income to a stop too. However, nothing stops the bills! Continuing to pay the mortgage, car loan, fuel and food bills (not to mention the medical treatment) costs money - money which illness or injury makes it virtually impossible to earn.   If you are self employed and you are unable to go out to work, your income will cease immediately. If you are an employee, your salary will not be paid indefinitely during long periods of illness. What would happen to you, your family and way of life if illness cut short your ability to earn? Intelligent Investments work with the worlds leading Life Insurance providers to bring the client an unsurpassed range of protection products and options.

Generally, everyone who lives in a country that does not provide free state healthcare requires medical insurance. Many European countries are now prohibiting their expatriated nationals from returning home for free medical treatment. For example, in the UK a British expat who has not maintained their National Insurance Contributions will be charged private rates for NHS treatment. Additionally, the cost of flying home for the treatment may be more expensive than the medical insurance.  Recently, an Australian policyholder based in Shanghai but visiting Singapore suffered bleeding from the colon. He immediately went to a local clinic. After several tests and initial treatment, staff decided they had neither the resources nor the medical specialists required for such a case. The only valid option was transfer to a centre of excellence in Hong Kong. There he received extensive treatment including a four-hour operation. After two months in hospital, he was well enough to fly back to Shanghai. Without international cover he would have faced bills of $160,000, including an air evacuation fee of $56,500. International private medicial insurance is mainly aimed at covering hospital in-patient and out-patient fees for a wide range of acute medical needs. Accident, hip replacement and acute or life-threatening infection are typical examples. Emergency evacuation and repatriation are key sales features. Some policies run to psychiatric care, dentistry, psychiatry and pregnancy. Whilst critical illness insurance, pays a lump sum if the policyholder suffers a serious illness and survives. The idea is that the £60,000 tax-free that the policyholder might get - a fairly typical sum assured - will be used for nursing bills and loss of income. One thing expat policyholders don't have to worry about is where they are resident. Critical illness premiums vary little on a geographical basis. When should I take out medical insurance? Is there a right age or time in life to consider it? If your employer does not provide insurance, you should take out medical insurance as soon as possible. There is no specific age or time that is more preferable to start a medical insurance policy as cover is annually renewable and the premium increases with your age. However, some policies offer a no-claims bonus where the premium remains unchanged as long as you do not make a claim. Additionally, if you are considering having a child, there is normally a 6-12 month period at the start of a policy where maternity treatment is not covered so apply for cover well in advance.  What type of policy should I take out? Does it depend on my circumstances? Intelligent Investments recommend taking out an international medical insurance policy for two reasons. Firstly, if you have a policy specific to the country or region you are currently resident in, you will have to switch cover if you move outside the region. Each time you switch cover; all your previous medical conditions are excluded. As such, if a theoretical individual had a heart attack, the treatment of which was covered by his regional medical insurance. However, if he was then moved to the Dubai office, he would lose all protection benefits related to heart conditions – if anyone would even be willing to insure him. Secondly, some regional plans do not offer ‘guaranteed renewability’. Let us take our heart attack victim again – whilst all regional plans should honour the initial claim and pay for rehabilitation until his renewal date, if they feel there will be several years of ongoing expense related to the condition or an increased risk of further problems, they might not choose to renew his cover. This person is then left with no insurance and huge rehabilitation costs - and it is unlikely any other insurer will insure him. How much does it cost? And how do I sign up? The cost of cover is calculated on your age and the benefits you require. Discounts can often be attained by paying yearly rather than monthly and some providers will also discount small groups. To receive a quotation, simply call us today with the names and dates of birth of those you wish to insure along with some details of the benefits you require. Once you are happy with a quotation, the application is usually just a couple of pages in length. You will not be required to undergo a medical examination and cover can usually be in place in 24-48 hours. Intelligent Investments are not tied to an individual provider and will therefore source the most suitable cover from the market place.

Life insurance or life assurance is a contract between the policy owner and the insurer, where the insurer agrees to pay a sum of money upon the occurrence of the policy owner's death. In return, the policy holder agrees to pay a stipulated amount called a premium at regular intervals. As with most insurance polices, life assurance is a contract between the insurer and the policyholder whereby a benefit is paid to the designated Beneficiary (or Beneficiaries) if an insured event occurs which is covered by the policy. To be a life policy the insured event must be based upon life (or lives) of the people named in the policy. Insured events that may be covered include: death, and accidental death Life policies are legal contracts and the terms of the contract describe the limitations of the insured events. Specific exclusions are often written into the contract to limit the liability of the insurer; for example claims relating to suicide, fraud, war, riot and civil commotion. Life based contracts tend to fall into two major categories: Protection policies - designed to provide a benefit in the event of specified event, typically a lump  sum payment. Investment policies - where the main objective is to facilitate the growth of capital by regular or single premiums. Insurance v. Assurance The specific uses of the term 'insurance' and 'assurance' are sometimes confused. In general, the term insurance refers to providing cover for an event that might happen while assurance is the provision of cover for an event that is certain to happen. When a person insures the contents of their home they do so because of events that might happen (fire, theft, flood, etc.) They hope their home will never be burglared, or burn down, but they want to ensure that they are financially protected if the worst happens. This example of Insurance shows how it is a way of spending a little money to protect against the risk of having to spend a lot of money. When a person insures their life they do so knowing that one day they will die. Therefore a policy that covers death is assured to make a payment. The policy offers assurance on death; even if the policy has a prescribed termination date the policy is still assured to pay on death and therefore is an assurance policy. Examples include Term Assurance and Whole Life Assurance. An accidental death policy is not assured to pay on death as the life insured may not die through an accident, therefore it is an insurance policy. (This set of distinctions does not really apply to United States jurisdictions where both forms of coverage are called "insurance".) A policy might also be assured for other reasons. For example an endowment policy is designed to provide a lump sum on maturity. Under certain types of policy the lump sum is guaranteed. Therefore, this may also be called an assurance policy. The test of whether a policy is assurance or insurance is that with an assurance policy the insured event will definitely occur (at some point) whereas with an insurance policy there is a risk the insured event might occur. With regard to Whole Life policies, the question is not whether the insured event (in this case death) will occur, but simply when. If the policy has nonforfeiture values (or cash values) then the policy is assured to pay. During recent years, the distinction between the two terms has become largely blurred. This is principally due to many companies offering both types of policy, and rather than refer to themselves using both insurance and assurance titles, they instead use just one.

At Intelligent Investments, we understand that many small businesses depend on specific individuals for the company's continuing success. Some companies, in fact, could not survive if one or more key individuals suddenly died or were injured and could not work. To guard against financial loss due to the absence of an indispensable employee, many companies take out 'Keyman' insurance, in the form of life insurance, disability insurance or both. Specific instances or situations in which a company should consider Keyman insurance may occur when: 1.  The success or ongoing existence of a partnership is dependent on the abilities of one or more of the partners If one of the partners suddenly passed away, or became incapacitated and could not continue work, Keyman insurance would provide a financial cushion for the remaining partners, enabling the business to continue while new talent was recruited. 2.  The business needs to secure a loan When granting a loan to a small business, a lender will often require that one or more of the owners or employees take out life insurance and/or disability insurance protection, with the company or lender named as the beneficiary. 3.  A salesperson generates a high percentage of total sales The insurance would cover lost sales revenue while the employee recovered from illness or accident, or in the case of death, until a new employee could be hired and trained. 4. The business merges with another company, goes public or enters any type of financial /operational arrangement with another company Keyman insurance is often taken out for top executives, project supervisors or marketing individuals. Tech companies often take out Keyman insurance on one or more of their indispensable engineers or designers. Clearly, other circumstances could arise that warrant considering Keyman insurance. Call Intelligent Investments today, to speak with one of our specialists and see whether it would be beneficial to invest in this type of coverage.