Well the last 14 years or so have been the good times, falling unemployment, rising house price’s and plenty of cheap credit; it’s been a great party.

Well the party is now well and truly over and lean times are here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future. If ever there was a sign that we are in some degree of trouble, it’s the treasury cutting VAT by 2.5% before Christmas and the Bank of England, cutting the repo rate to 2%……at the busiest time of the year! That gives you an indication of how unlikely any inflation is; indeed there is talk of deflation.

Now all this of course means closures, and we are already seeing some of those with the likes of Woollies and MFI going to the wall, as well as many well known brands going into administration. This all equals branch closures and job losses, latest estimates suggest around 650,000 redundancies in 2009; a gloomy outlook.

If you do not have a year’s salary put aside as rainy day money, it makes perfect financial sense to seek out a Redundancy Insurance Policy. This type of cover will usually replace up to 65% of earnings should you be made unemployed or redundant.

In the event of a valid claim, the monthly benefit will be paid directly to you, so you can deal with your commitments, as you feel fit. Normally, Redundancy Insurance Policies pay a benefit for up to 12 months if needed, and the benefit is tax free under current HMRC rules.

A Redundancy Insurance Policy does exactly what it says in the literature; so, do make sure that you read it!

These days, the internet is the best place to shop for a stand alone Redundancy Insurance. Providers that market their policies in this way have lower overheads, and are therefore at a competitive advantage in terms of price/benefits they can offer, over say, the major Banks.