Best Insurance

Unemployment At 2.51 Million, Insufficient Retirement Funds – Situation Worsens For The Employed(28-Sep-2011)

As per the figures released by the The Office for National Statistics (ONS), number of people unemployed as of July 2011 stood at a staggering 2.51 Million or 7.9%. A sharp rise in youth unemployment and loss of public sector jobs that have not been replaced by the private sector as predicted by the government has been cited as one of the reasons for such a sharp increase in unemployment. The unemployment rate using the internationally agreed yardstick for calculating joblessness rose to 7.9% for May to July, from 7.7% in February to April.

A more worrying fact is the affordability is at all-time low. Salary freezes, no bonuses and increased uncertainty over jobs is forcing people to just save up as much as they can at the cost of their long term wellbeing. As per the latest research by Prudential, more than a third of people have ceased their pension payments.  As per the same survey, more than 43% of people who have stopped making payments have no plans at all to resume them. 

There has been an increasing demand for short term income protection insurance over the past few months. As indicated by several researches in the protection sector in the UK, more people tend to have life insurance and critical illness and have tended to overlook their very livelihood i.e. income and have no protection in place for that.

Kesh Thukaram, Director of Best Insurance commented on these figures and said that until the recession hit, people were less worried about jobs and hence the approach was to make sure that their families do not suffer or face the consequences of mortgages or loans due to death or long term illness. Finding a job was relatively easy. However things are different now. We find more and more people cancelling other insurances and prioritising income and seeking to protect their income through income protection insurance and payment protection insurance. Stuart Boseley, Director of Best Insurance added and said that until recently people did not have to wait for too long between jobs and had some savings to see through. The most common thing to do for people who were made redundant was to take a holiday and come back and seek a new job. However, things have changed now. Finding jobs are not easy and many recognise that and hence they want to protect their incomes by choosing to buy income protection insurance rather than other types.

Best Insurance offers a wide range of income protection insurance and payment protection insurance both online through a full end to end quote and buy system and also on the phones.