Plan Saves Businessman After Car
Crash Ordeal

Stephen Dimsey was relieved he had taken out mortgage protection insurance after a car accident stopped him working for five weeks.

Stephen, 25, and his wife, Lorraine, bought mortgage protection insurance from specialist Burgesses two years ago after finding it on an Internet search engine.

“Some lenders wanted almost £50 a month to protect our £63,000 mortgage, which was ridiculous. Burgesses charged just £15 and the level of cover was better,” said Stephen.

Just nine days after he had launched his new business, a car paint repairs company, Stephen and Lorraine had the car crash.

“I had painful back and neck injuries, and headaches,” he said, “and the doctor signed me off for five weeks.”

This was a problem because they had poured every penny into the business and did not have enough to cover the mortgage on their three-bedroom home in Gillingham, Kent. Then they remembered the mortgage protection insurance.

“Burgesses responded quickly and we soon had the cash. A lot of insurers don’t come through when it matters – but they did.” Most mortgage protection insurance policies allow you to claim after you have been ill or redundant for 30 consecutive days, although some make you wait 60 days.

The best policies offer “back to day one cover”. After 30 days, payments are backdated to the first day of illness or redundancy. Burgesses, Halifax and Paymentshield do this but Nationwide doesn’t.

C & G is one of the worst offenders. It won’t let you claim for the first 60 days and does not backdate payments. “The average claim lasts five months,” says Gareth Riding, marketing director at Paymentshield. “If you wait 30 or 60 days before the policy pays out you lose hundreds of pounds.”