Income insurance is also known as accident, sickness and unemployment cover or ASU.

Naturally the main components of a income insurance are cover against:

• accident
• sickness
• unemployment

Income insurance policies are stand alone policies that insure your income and are not directly related to any mortgages, loans or credit agreements. These types of policies generally allow you to have a lower amount of cover when compared to a mortgage income protection policy. Mortgage insurance plans can provide cover up to £3000 per month whereas income insurance policies are in the region of £1000 to £1500 per month.

You are able to mix and match income insurance and mortgage insurance policies to gain an overall higher level of cover but you will need to check your eligibility for this before you apply.

The main reason people choose income insurance cover is for the unemployment or redundancy option. Employment is not as secure as it once was and an income insurance policy will protect against this eventuality by providing a much needed income when redundancy occurs. The cost of income payment protection insurance does not have to be high and there are now many providers of this type of insurance to choose from.

Income payment protection insurance is available from a number of different insurance providers but the basic make up of an income payment protection insurance policy is generally the same.

These income payment protection insurance policies provide cover against:

• Accident
• Sickness
• Unemployment

They will all have a maximum amount of cover you can insure for. This is typically around £1000 per month but can be more and is also related to earnings. In the event of a claim, most income payment protection insurance policies will payout for a maximum of 12 months. After this time the policy will make no further payments.

One important feature to look out for is back to day one cover. This means that you will be gaining insurance payments from the first day of your claim.

Income protection insurance policies are designed to insure your regular earnings against accident, sickness and unemployment. This also means that you do not need to have a mortgage or loan to buy income payment protection insurance.