Alan Lakey, a partner at Highclere Financial Services, claims that Critical Illness providers need to look after their customers fairly, and not be bound by the wordings on the contract, according to new review site Quote Critical Illness.

He said, “During the mid 1990s, I began analysing the competing plans and the contractual wordings to ensure that my recommendations were based around maximising the likelihood of a successful claim rather than on price.

“Back then, Scottish Provident and Skandia offered the premier plans in respect of quality. Indeed, at point, I had to explain to the regulator why over 25 per cent of my business had gone the way of Scottish Provident.

“In Sept 2006, Abbey tired of its toy and sold Scottish Provident to Phoenix Life, then part of the Resolution Group.  During 2008, the Scottish Provident brand was sold to Royal London, with older plans remaining with Phoenix which rebranded them under its name in January 2009.

“The point of this exposition is that those clients who were provided with high quality Scottish Provident policies throughout the late 1990s and early noughties have found themselves consigned to a company that focuses on administering existing plans and is not in the new business market.  This has concerned me for some time as it removed one of the prime reasons to be accommodating when considering a claim.  This concern solidified when, after 21 years, I encountered my first rejected claim.

“Let me be clear, Phoenix Life, in rejecting my client’s claim, has not acted illegally or failed to heed the precise wording of the cancer definition concerned.  However, as an industry, we strive to pay claims where possible and need to look beyond the precision that contractual wordings provide.    Other providers currently active in the market have intimated that they would have paid this claim, even though technically it could be declined.  Their attitude is shaped by customer consideration and the knowledge that each declined claim eats away at the industry’s assertion that it treats the customer fairly.”

Debt Consolidation with Home Equity Loan Give You the Most Flexibility

Have you ever wondered how can you consolidation your debts and help you to save money which is used to pay for those high interest rate debts? You can reduce your interest rate charges by using your home equity loan to consolidate all of your outstanding debts. Your home equity loan can be used to consolidate debt and pay off the following accounts:

• Credit card balances
• Gas card balances
• Department store balances
• Installment loans
• Auto loans
• Any account balance that is outstanding.

Home equity loans allow a homeowner to borrow money by pledging the house as collateral. Normally this loan is easier to be approved by the lender even if you have bad credit because the lender view home equity loan as relatively safe. And you can borrow a relatively large amount of money to pay off all or most of your other high interest rate debts.

Home equity loans generally have a much lower interest rate than most credit cards and other unsecured loans. You can also set the repayment terms at a fixed rate so that you can plan exactly how much to budget each month. Also save time and hassle by writing just one monthly check.

Most home equity loans have the following repayment terms:

• up to 5 years
• up to 10 years
• up to 15 years
• up to 20 years

Thus, you have the flexibility of tailor a debt consolidation plan that fit your budget. If your debt consolidation balance is high, you may go plan with a long repayment period. With the longer repayment period, you will pay lower monthly repayment and budget for other living expenses needs.

What are the things save in debt consolidation?

By consolidation your debt with a home equity loan let you have the flexibility to plan ahead for your other living expenses needs. Home equity loan carries a much lower interest rate than most credit cards and other loans. And any interest you pay may be tax deductible. Hence, using home equity loan to write off your high interest rate debts such as credit card (more than 12% of interest rate) will leave you a high income balance (after deduce the month repayment for home equity loan) to budget for other needs such as send your kids to college, finance a new car & etc.

How much can you save?

That depends on your income bracket and annual percentage rate. But after deducting all the qualifying interest payments from your taxes, your effective APR will be significantly lowered. By comparing this lower interest rate to your car loan, credit cards and other installment loan's interest rates which do not qualify for tax deductible, you can see why is a smart way of doing debt consolidation with a home equity loan.

Summary

Home equity loan is the best method to consolidate your high interest debts; it carries low interest rate, tax deductible and love by the lenders as the secured loan to their borrowers. Debt consolidation with home equity loan gives you the maximum flexibility to plan ahead.