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Personal Insurance Guide
By Tahir Abbas, Editor · Last updated 1 November 2026
Personal insurance is the cover you buy for yourself and your family: your health, your life, your income and your pets. It exists to protect the things that are hardest to replace with savings alone — the cost of medical treatment, the income your household relies on, and the bills that follow a serious illness, an accident or a death in the family.
This hub brings together every type of personal insurance covered on Being Insurance, from health and life cover to pet, dental, vision and funeral insurance. Each guide below explains what the cover does, what it usually leaves out, who it suits, and how to compare policies before you buy.
Types of personal insurance
- Pet Insurance
- Student Insurance
- Dental Insurance
- Accident Insurance
- Income Protection
- Critical Illness Insurance
- Mortgage Protection
- Senior Insurance
- Funeral Insurance
- Life Insurance
- Health Insurance
- Disability Insurance
- Vision Insurance
What personal insurance typically covers
Exactly what is covered depends on the type of policy, but personal insurance commonly helps with:
- Medical, dental or veterinary treatment costs, depending on the policy
- A regular payment or lump sum if illness or injury stops you working
- A lump sum paid to your family if you die or are diagnosed with a serious illness
- Help with funeral costs and the expenses that follow a death
- Support for dependants, such as children or a partner who relies on your income
What personal insurance typically does not cover
- Conditions you already had before the policy started, on many policies
- Claims made during a waiting period at the start of the policy
- Elective or cosmetic treatment that is not medically necessary
- Events and treatments specifically excluded in the policy wording
- Anything outside the cover level, limits or benefit period you chose
Who personal insurance is for
Personal insurance matters most when someone else depends on you, or when an unexpected bill would be hard to pay from savings. That includes parents, homeowners with a mortgage, students away from home, older people planning for later life, and pet owners facing veterinary bills. If you have generous savings and no dependants, some types of cover may matter less — the guides below help you judge each one on its own merits.
How to choose and compare personal insurance
- Start from the risk you are covering, not the cheapest premium
- Compare policies at the same level of cover, with the same excess and limits
- Read the exclusions and waiting periods before you compare prices
- Check whether the payout would actually meet your costs — a small benefit may not be enough
- Review your cover when life changes: a new home, a child, a new job or retirement
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Sources and Disclosure
This guide is general information, not financial advice. Plan features described here are general and vary by insurer and state; always read the sample policy before you buy. For the rules governing insurance in your state, see the consumer resources of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC). Disclosure: Being Insurance is an independent comparison site. We may earn a commission when you buy through links on this page. That never changes which companies we list or the order we present them in.
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