Quarter of a trillion pounds worth of mortgages unprotected

Wife not fully protected: call for mandatory cover

Is there justification for life insurance (as a minimum but possible also critical illness cover) becoming mandatory as with care insurance? This being for both partners, especially where there are children involved. The grounds being humanitarian to mitigate the damage to those left behind. Case in point: As the bread winner and being one of the 6 in 10 whose mortgages are adequately protected by life insurance things may at fist glace seem ok however a shortfall of cover for my wife has left me looking after three young boys. Also I now have no job as I was made redundant after the death of my wife as I could not be both full time carer and full time employee; but still I’m left with a £100K mortgage, even after her life insurance paid out. Should I have become critical ill or died my wife would have been more than adequately cared for but due to a turn of fate which left my wife’s cover inadequate. This being due to our building an extension and subsequently remortgaging with addition cover for me but not my wife as it coincided with her pregnancy which then lead to diabetes and a hernia after which it was forgotten about. A year after that she got terminal cancer. The Sate offers no additional support as my wife only worked part time (as many mother do) and so did not gain enough National Insurance contribution for me to qualify for parent’s widows allowance or bereavement benefit (Maybe time for a judicial review on that mater due to a perceived inequality). The income support, child benefit and tax credit I have been provided does not even cover the mortgage. Consequently, the children could lose their home as well as their mother. As if losing Mum was not traumatic enough. If however I rented this expenditure would be covered by housing benefit and if I had not built the extension and remortgaged, then the mortgage interest would be covered after 13 weeks. For some odd reason the extension element of my mortgage is not covered by such support but if I bought my own extended house afresh it would be!!. I wonder if the figures in the article above are in fact worse as both partners may not have full cover i.e. it is not inconceivable for one partner to have greater cover than another but the statistical analysis may look like my family was covered sufficiently?

Posted by: Duncan | Nov 03 2011