Other Insurance

Insurance can usually be arranged, at a price, to indemnify you against losses arising from any reasonable hazards to yourself or your possessions.

Personal accident, often providing for the payment of stated amounts of compensation for specified injuries, is quite cheap, as the average risk to any one individual is small. Accident cover is often included in packaged insurance such as travel insurance.

Travel insurance. This insures against the usual risks associated with overseas travel, whether on business or holiday, such as medical treatment (for illness as well as accident), loss of luggage, tickets and cash (to a specified limit), and even the cancellation of the holiday or the failure of public transport. This is short-term insurance and premiums range from around £6 per week per person. Many tour organisations include travel insurance in the package.

Medical insurance, which secures hospital treatment as a private patient, is increasingly popular, although expensive. For an additional premium you can include costs of private consultations with a general practitioner, although the patient is usually required to pay for the first two or three consultations in a year (i.e. there is an 'excess').

Permanent health insurance is very different from medical insurance. This is a contract that provides for the payment of an agreed series of periodic payments to the insured should he become sick or disabled for a lengthy period and unable to carry on working. This insurance is not designed just to meet medical costs, but to provide an income to replace some of the income from employment which will cease or fall dramatically in the case of a long absence from work.

• Premiums No-claims Bonus
• Dealing Costs