FAQs

Best Insurance offers two products to meet the varying demand of its customers. If you have a mortgage, loan or rent, then Income and Commitment Protection Insurance offers you a benefit amount which will be 1.5 times your monthly outgoings against these three. If you do not have mortgage, loan or rent, or if your benefit amount is more than 1.5 times of these three, then you will have to choose our Income Protection Insurance. Best Income Protection Insurance is a stand aloneincome protectionwith no linkages to any of your monthly commitments.

Best Insurance offers two products to meet the varying demand of its customers. If you have a mortgage, loan or rent, then Income and Commitment Protection Insurance offers you a benefit amount which will be 1.5 times your monthly outgoings against these three. If you do not have mortgage, loan or rent, or if your benefit amount is more than 1.5 times of these three, then you will have to choose our Income Protection Insurance. Best Income Protection Insurance is a stand aloneincome protectionwith no linkages to any of your monthly commitments.

Payment Protection Insurance is based on specific monthly payments you might make, usually limited to mortgage, rent, or a secured loan. If you do not have any of these, you cannot purchase Payment Protection Insurance.

Income Protection Insurance protects your income and has no payment prerequisites. As the risk of income protection is higher, pure Income Protection Insurance can cost more than Payment Protection Insurance.

By virtue of our panel of insurers, Best Insurance can provide you with both. Please call us on 0330 330 9465 or chat with us if you are interested in learning more.

Our unemployment protection policies are designed to provide you with emergency income should you find yourself unexpectedly and involuntarily unemployed. You are not required to have a mortgage or other regular financial obligations (such as loan repayments) to be eligible for unemployment cover.

However, if you do make regular payments such as these and your benefit amount meets the criteria of our redundancy protection insurance products, you might consider investing in the latter instead, as your monthly costs will be lower than they would be for a pure income protection policy.

The Best Insurance online quote system is built on intelligent logic and tailored specifically to guide you through to the right product based on your answers. All unemployment protection policies are subject to specific eligibility criteria; please refer to the policy wording for more information.

If you elect to have your benefit payments for mortgage or loan repayments paid directly to your mortgage or loan provider, it will be considered receipt of a monthly income via your unemployment cover. This may affect your eligibility for governmental “means-tested” benefits (e.g. income support).

As a general rule of thumb, the benefit amount for your policy has an upper limit of 65% of your gross monthly income and should not exceed £2,500. If you choose to purchase payment protection insurance, your benefit amount should not exceed your monthly mortgage, rent, or secured loan repayments.

Joint cover is not offered by Best Insurance for unemployment insurance and each policy for redundancy protection is specific only to the individual policy holder.

As with all income protection, payment protection, and redundancy protection policies, Best Insurance makes use of certain words and phrases that have certain weighted definitions assigned to them in the policy wordings. More details about these words and their meanings can be found under the “Definitions” section of the policy wordings.

Best Insurance Protection offers the following cover options:

• Accident, sickness and unemployment cover
• Accident and sickness only cover
• Unemployment only cover that covers your payments
• Unemployment only cover that covers your income

Depending on your requirement, the insurer may vary. The key facts documents and policy wordings for the each type of product is made available for you to download in the quote system

Best Insurance is underwritten by various insurers, depending on the product. The product that best suits your requirements will be offered from this range, based on the answers you provided to the various qualifying questions of our quote system.

Details of the administrators can be found in your policy wording.

The policy wordings can be found in a few areas of the website, such as under thepolicy documentssection or on the declaration page of the quote system.

Yes, you can transfer cover from your current insurer, but you must ensure that the type of insurance policy (i.e., income protection; payment protection; accident, sickness and unemployment cover; redundancy cover) is the same.

Best Insurance accepts payments via monthly direct debit for all policies. For further details regarding the payment of your unemployment insurance, payment protection, or income protection policy, please refer to the payment page of the quote system or your policy wording.

To be paid your unemployment insurance benefits, you’ll need to satisfy the requirements of your claim. That means you’ll need to wait out your excess and waiting periods. Your excess period begins on the day you make your claims administrator aware that you’ve suffered a loss, though the length will differ depending on your policy. Your waiting period follows your excess period and is always 30 days longer than the excess period.

For example, an excess period of 30 days will mean that you will have to be off work for 60 days before you can start getting paid, with the first benefit payment made on day 61. Once the excess and waiting periods have been satisfied, the claim will continue to pay benefits pro rata for all remaining months until you find new employment.

You will receive monthly benefits from your Best Insurance payment protection insurance policy for up to 12 months. You can read more information about the length of cover available in the Policy Wording.

Best Insurance will allow you to cover up to 65% of your gross monthly income, or £2,500 of it – whichever is the lower amount.

Depending on which product you’ve selected, Best Insurance will provide either a month-by-month rolling contract or an annual policy, renewable on a twelve-monthly basis. Termination of your cover will occur should you retire, reach the age of 70, or reach the statutory retirement age – whichever is earlier. Some policies may terminate before the age of 70, but this depends on the policy. Further details regarding the end date of your policy can be found under the ‘Termination’ section of your policy wordings.

There are certain requirements you will need to meet in order to receive benefits from your Best Insurance redundancy protection policy. You must be confident that the following criteria apply to you when applying:

• You are a UK resident;
• In full-time active work (be you a full-time permanent employee, self-employed, or on a renewable contract) and working for more than 16 hours per week;
• Regularly pay and are responsible for any commitments covered (applicable for accident, sickness and unemployment and payment protection policies);
• You cannot be off work due to ill health at the point of application and inception of cover. Please note the pre-existing medical conditions exclusions in the key facts and policy wording documents;
• Over 18 and under 60 at inception. All cover and claims payments cease on attaining age 65 or statutory retirement age;
• Unaware of any impending unemployment or potential failure of the self-employed person’s business;
• Able to sign the declaration without any reservation or qualification.

Self-employed individuals and those on renewable contracts have the same benefits as employees, but have separate qualifying criteria.

If you find yourself in a situation wherein you must make a claim, please contact the claims department whose contact details are listed in your policy wording. You should notify us and the claims department immediately after you have been made redundant, become a carer, had an accident/been hospitalised, or experienced any other change in your circumstances that will lead to a claim. Every policy stipulates the length of the time period within which you must contact the claims department and furnish the details of your claim.

You should always begin a claim as soon as possible. For accident and sickness policies, you should contact the claims administrator listed in your policy wordings as soon as you’ve suffered an injury or fallen too sick to work so that you can receive your benefits as quickly as possible. If you have an unemployment insurance policy, you should contact the claims administrator when you have been made redundant.

All policy wordings will stipulate the amount of time that you have to contact the claims department and begin outlining the details of your claim, so make sure you don’t leave it too late.

As with all unemployment insurance policies that cover accident and sickness there are certain exclusions which would mean you would not be able to make a successful claim. More details about when you can and cannot make a claim under an accident and sickness unemployment insurance policy can be found in the policy wordings.

If your cover has no excess period, then after 30 consecutive days of being unable to work due to unemployment, you are eligible to begin your claim. However, if you have opted for an excess period, you will have to wait for this period to complete. After your excess period has ended, your claim will begin to accrue; you will then begin receiving benefits 30 consecutive days after the start of your claim accrual.

Regardless of excess, you must make your claim within the stipulated number of days after your loss of employment. More details regarding when you should claim unemployment benefits can be found in your policy wording.

For more details regarding which circumstances would prevent you from claiming unemployment benefits, please refer to your policy wordings.

It is your responsibility to ensure that this policy continues to meet your requirements and correctly covers your commitment. If your circumstances change, you should refer to your policy and check your continued eligibility. Changes in circumstances that might affect your policy eligibility could include:

• Changing your employment e.g., your work becomes temporary.
• You voluntarily reduce your hours of work to less than 16 hours per week.
• You leave the UK to live abroad.
• You retire from work and do not intend to actively seek further work.
• Your monthly outgoings change (in the case of payment protection insurance);
• Your monthly income changes (in the case of income protection insurance);

If in doubt, please contact us and we will be delighted to assist you.

Our advisors will call you back if required to ensure you take out the appropriate insurance.

You can cancel your policy at any time by contacting us. You can contact us by:

Telephone: 0330 330 9465 (09:00 am to 05:00 pm Monday — Friday excluding bank holidays. Calls are charged at your standard network rate). All calls are recorded for training, compliance and claims purposes.

Email: [email protected]

If you cancel your policy within 30 days from the day you bought it or the day you get your policy documents (whichever happens later), any premium paid will be refunded if you have not made, and do not intend to make, a claim. After the initial period of 30 days, you can cancel your policy at any time however you will not receive a refund.

Should you wish to make a complaint regarding Best Insurance or the service you have received in relation to taking out cover with us, your policy administrator will endeavour to take all measures possible to correct this for you. Please refer to the ‘Complaints’ section of your policy wordings for more details regarding the submission of a complaint.