Why most sickness and unemployment insurance is a waste of your money

There are few real 'must have' insurance products, writes Tim Bennett. Beyond that it’s all optional, and in many cases unnecessary - despite what your financial adviser may say...

This article is taken from Merryn Somerset Webb's free weekly personal finance email, Money Sense. Click here to sign up now: Money Sense

"You can buy yourself insurance against almost any conceivable risk even alien abduction," says Claudia Dyer of consumer group Which?. While most of us are probably not covered against extraterrestrial kidnapping, it is likely that we have more cover than we need in some areas, and less or none at all in more important ones.

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Tim graduated with a history degree from Cambridge University in 1989 and, after a year of travelling, joined the financial services firm Ernst and Young in 1990, qualifying as a chartered accountant in 1994.

He then moved into financial markets training, designing and running a variety of courses at graduate level and beyond for a range of organisations including the Securities and Investment Institute and UBS. He joined MoneyWeek in 2007.