Sorting Life Insurance & Income Protection

[NiceCupOfTea]

Looking for a bit of advice.

I need to sort out some life insurance and also some income protection insurance (as I am self employed). Life insurance seems relatively simple to sort out looking at the moneysavingexpert website, but finding Income Protection a bit more tricky to get my head around.

Would I be better off speaking to an IFA about this and will this net me the best deal? Any advice gratefully received!

[NiceCupOfTea]

Thanks Sarnie, I may take you up on that. I have done a few online quotes and done a bit of reading, and have come up with a few thoughts - please let me know if I am barking up the wrong tree or am massively misguided!

Based on the fact I am early 40s, wife who works part time (employed), 1 young child, some savings.

• Life Insurance is a Good Thing - 20-25 years (until kid(s) out of full time education) for 10x my yearly earnings seems about right.

• Income Protection - a colleague recently has been recovering from cancer and having to work when she could due to her income protection being pretty useless. Sickness/Accident kicking in after 30 or maybe 90 days, running for 24 months, for roughly 1/3-1/2 of my monthly income would seem to fit the bill - long enough to recover (hopefully!)

• The Employment part of Income Protection seems unnecessary for me as I work for lots of different places (some as an employee), both teaching and as a performer - so if I lose one thing, or am unable to play, then I still have some income. On the other hand it doesn't seem massively expensive... but if it's useless to me I might as well save the money.

• Critical Illness Cover - this is an expensive one and on balance I think it's not that worthwhile. In the short term the I.P. will give me some cover and give me time to sort things. If money is needed for treatment/home adaptations/etc. then we do have some savings. It would be nice to have I suppose, but it seems to triple the life insurance quotes.

Those are my thoughts so far. Am I barking up the right tree?