Emergency Services Workers – check you are covered

The UK has been pretty unpredictable in recent months, with flash floods reeking havoc across most counties together with threats of terrorist attacks.

Emergency services have been stretched at times and it is important for emergency service workers to ensure their personal insurance policies cover them if they are injured or killed during an incident.

If you are an emergency services worker, it is particularly important to check that your Life Insurance, Income protection and/or Accident, Sickness and Unemployment policies do not carry clauses excluding cover whilst undertaking the more dangerous activities.

It is equally important that you make sure any beneficiary details are up to date. This is the clause which names the beneficiaries of the proceeds from your life insurance policy if you die.

It is common for people not to appreciate that in order for the proceeds from your life insurance policies to be kept out of your estate and therefore subject to estate tax, the beneficiary must be specifically named in your policies.

If no beneficiary is listed, then the life insurance death benefit is absorbed into your estate, becoming liable to estate tax which can take a significant part of the monies you had hoped would go to your beneficiary.