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Yup. And cancer. In 2023, Irish Life paid out over €60 million on over 3,000 Income Protection claims. Top three causes were (1) Mental Health, (2) Cancer and (3) Musculoskeletal.

Don't mix up Income Protection (sometimes called Permanent Health Insurance) with Specified Serious Illness (sometimes called Critical Illness). Income Protection covers you for an ongoing income if you cannot work due to illness or accident. Usually there's no list of illnesses. Any illness...

No. If the OP withdraws 25% tax-free lump sum now, they can't then transfer the other 75% into another Occupational Pension Scheme.

Have a look at this circular. Some organisations get career average Single Scheme benefits but the organisation must throw in an employer contribution. The required employer contribution is 3 times the employees' contribution and this might or might not be the full cost. The norm in private...

+1 I would find it difficult to agree with the argument that the possibility of a redundancy payment followed by an immediate new job is a perk, compared with a job with no possibility of redundancy.

Class A PRSI provides far more potential benefits than just redundancy payments. See here.

Assuming that the amount of the AVC is fully allowable at the higher tax rate and that you have no other monies owing to Revenue, yes.

Warning - the acquisition of a spouse can cause serious damage to your financial health. ;)

Varies by amount of fund but for someone who wants to invest only in listed shares or ETFs, 1% per year of the assets, to include the PRSA structure and trading platform.

Only in very limited circumstances where the person paid no PRSI whatsoever until 10 years before State pension age and then suddenly starts paying 52 weeks PRSI every year until the State pension. Anyway, this method of calculating eligibility for the State Pension is being phased out...

Self-administered Occupational Pension Schemes (a.k.a. Executive Pensions) are no longer available and the last of them will probably be wound up no later than April 2026. Self-administered PRSAs, Buy-Out Bonds, ARFs are all still available. The main reasons I find people want...

A private sector employee in an Occupational Pension Scheme who wishes to enhance their retirement benefits has the option of contributing to an AVC or an AVC PRSA, neither of which provides any guarantee of the return they will get. A public sector employee has the exact same availability of...

It depends on what options the person chooses at retirement. If they are looking for a guaranteed pension for life like a Public Service pension provides, they would need to buy an annuity. It is possible to include provision for widow's and children's pensions on an annuity, but each option...

I wasn't talking about what a private sector person might do with their fund. I was putting an approximate value on a State guaranteed pension for life of €35,000 per year (usually increased annually), with widow's pension for the lifetime of the widow and a tax-free lump sum of €105,000. That...

Most Public Servants retiring now with full service would have to be in the pre-1995 scheme, which is not co-ordinated with the State Contributory Pension. And their salary would have been lower in previous years, rising with increments over the years. So the contributions they would have made...

A public servant retiring now on a salary of €70,000 with full service will get a pension for life of €35,000 per year, with increases in the pension, spouse's pension if they die first and a lump sum of €105,000. A private sector employee would need to accumulate over €1 million to get the...

It must be one of their PRSA products that offers a rebate when the fund value is over €100,000. If it is one of them, then the rebate of 0.25% per year is applied on a monthly basis by adding units to the PRSA when the fund value is >€100,000.

It does. Some insurers will continue paying a claim on the grounds that she's unable to work anywhere. Others will terminate the claim because she's effectively been dismissed from the job. Only way of knowing for sure is to (a) ask her broker to confirm or (b) read through the policy...

If it was a group PHI scheme, usually the insurance company pays the claim to the employer who then continues to pay part of the salary to the employee. If the employer winds up, she can arrange for the claim to be paid directly to her by the insurance company. They will deduct taxes under PAYE.

Life begins at 50... Are you in another job right now? Are you paying tax on your salary at the higher 40% tax rate? You can withdraw the remaining €75,000 all in one go but you'll be taxed on it as if you earned €75,000 like, say, a bonus. So you'll lose a large amount of it to taxes...