Serious illness, long-term sickness and premature death are possibilities none of us likes to consider. Yet the financial impact can be significant.
That’s why protection planning is an important part of a well-rounded financial plan. Through your relationship with Equilibrium, you’ll have access to a dedicated protection specialist whose sole focus is helping protect you, your family and your finances from life’s unexpected events.
In the UK, there are more than 44 million motor insurance policies but only around 20 million life insurance policies. While protecting our cars is a legal requirement, protecting ourselves and our loved ones is a choice many people overlook.
Ensure your loved ones receive a lump sum or ongoing income if you die, helping to repay a mortgage, replace lost income, support dependants or cover an inheritance tax liability.
Provide a lump sum on diagnosis of a serious illness, helping to repay a mortgage, replace lost income, fund treatment or recovery costs, and give you the financial freedom to focus on getting better.
Replaces a proportion of your earned income if illness or injury stops you working and it pays monthly rather than as a lump sum, and continues until you can return to work, until the policy ends, or death, whichever happens first.
Protect your business against the financial impact of losing a shareholder, director or key employee. Business protection can provide funds to support continuity, buy back shares, replace critical expertise and help keep the business on track.
Help your loved ones inherit more of your estate by using life cover to meet inheritance tax liabilities, preserving gifts and reducing the impact of tax on your family's wealth.
Term Assurance helps provide financial security for your loved ones if you die during a chosen period. Whether you're protecting a mortgage, family lifestyle or future income needs, there are several options available. These include Level, Decreasing and Increasing Term Assurance, Family Income Benefit, and Joint Life Assurance, allowing cover to be tailored to your family's circumstances and financial goals.
Critical Illness Cover provides a tax-free lump sum if you are diagnosed with a specified serious medical condition covered by the policy. The payment can be used to repay debt, replace lost income, fund private treatment, adapt your home, or provide financial security while you focus on recovery. It is designed to reduce the financial impact of a life-changing illness.
Income Protection provides a regular monthly income if illness or injury prevents you from working. Unlike life cover or critical illness cover, it replaces part of your earnings rather than paying a lump sum. Payments continue until you return to work, retire, the policy ends or, in some cases, death, helping you maintain your lifestyle and meet ongoing financial commitments.
Business Protection helps safeguard a business against the financial consequences of losing a shareholder, director or key employee through death or serious illness. Solutions can provide funds to buy back shares, compensate for the loss of a key individual, or provide life cover through the business, helping maintain stability, continuity and control during difficult circumstances.
Whole of Life and Gift Protection helps preserve more of your wealth for future generations. Whole of Life cover can provide funds to meet an inheritance tax liability on death, while Gift Inter Vivos cover protects substantial lifetime gifts during the seven-year inheritance tax period, helping ensure your loved ones receive the full benefit of your estate and gifts.
Protection is rarely about finding the cheapest policy. The right solution depends on cover definitions, underwriting, added benefits and claims performance. That's why our recommendations are built on four core principles, helping ensure the cover is right when it's needed most.
Protection advice at Equilibrium is delivered by a dedicated Protection Specialist whose only job is to get this right. Your financial planner and client manager stay at the centre of your relationship with us; the protection work sits inside that relationship as a specialist function, not a referral to a third party.
For each recommendation, we research across the mainstream UK insurer market to provide a complete comparison between insurers against defined criteria. We are not tied to any insurer, and our recommendation is driven by fit, not by any commercial arrangement.
Before any application is submitted, we approach insurers anonymously with your circumstances to establish how each is likely to view the risk. That means no surprises later, and where terms are likely to vary, we go to the insurer most likely to offer the best outcomes.
We are paid for placing appropriate cover, not for placing as much cover as possible. Where the honest answer is that you already have enough cover, or that the right action is to restructure what you have rather than buy more, that is what we will tell you.
With more than 20 years' experience as a specialist protection adviser, Tim Boddy helps clients understand the financial consequences of unexpected events and put the right safeguards in place. Having experienced a protection claim personally, Tim brings both professional expertise and first-hand insight into the valuable role protection can play in providing financial security when it matters most..
A typical protection case runs over four to twelve weeks from first meeting to cover in place, depending mainly on how quickly medical evidence can be gathered.
Your financial planner or client manager suggests that a protection conversation is worth having, and introduces you to our in-house Protection Specialist.
One meeting with our Protection Specialist, in person or virtually as you prefer, typically around an hour. This is where we gather the information we need about your circumstances, health and existing cover, and explain what happens next.
We gather details of any existing cover you hold, research the whole of the market, and run pre application underwriting on an anonymous basis with the most suitable insurers.
A short call or email at the midpoint, in whichever format you prefer, to confirm the underwriting outcomes, share realistic indicative premiums and agree next steps.
Applications are submitted to your chosen insurers and where GP reports or medical evidence are needed, we manage the process and keep you updated on progress.
Where the recommendation is straightforward, it can often be confirmed without a further meeting. Where it is more involved, you meet our Protection Specialist and your financial planner together to run through it. Either way, you receive a written recommendation report setting out the proposed cover, the reasons, the costs and any trust arrangements.
Once cover is in place, it is reviewed as part of your annual planning meeting alongside the rest of your plan. If your circumstances change, your financial planner flags it and our Protection Specialist is brought back in where needed.
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