Who your cover is really for
When you foster, your home fills with children who need you. If you died, the local authority or fostering agency would arrange a new placement for them. Your own children, partner and mortgage would be left to you to plan for.
That makes your cover look much like any other family's. Size it around your own dependants, the mortgage and the income your household would lose.
Some foster carers have adopted children or hold special guardianship of a child who started as a placement. Those children are part of your family in law and should be included in your planning in the same way as birth children.
A bigger home and a bigger mortgage
Many foster carers move to a larger house or extend to create a spare bedroom for placements. The mortgage can be higher than it would otherwise be, and if fostering stopped, the household might struggle to keep up repayments.
Cover that clears the mortgage gives your partner the choice to stay in the home, whether or not they continue fostering alone.
Think about your partner's choices too. Some would want to carry on fostering alone, and some would want to stop. Clearing the mortgage leaves both options open.
How insurers look at fostering income
Most foster carers are treated as self-employed by HMRC, and part of the allowance covers the child's costs rather than paying you. Insurers take different views on how much of this counts as income for income protection. Some focus on taxable profit, and some may not count fostering allowances at all.
If you also have a job or a business, income protection on those earnings can be simpler to arrange. Ask us to check how each insurer would treat your income before you apply.
Critical illness cover is worth a look if income protection is limited. It pays a lump sum on diagnosis of a listed illness, and it does not depend on how your income is classed.
When one partner is the main carer
In many fostering households one partner is the approved main carer, and the other works outside the home. Both lives matter. If the main carer died, fostering income would end. If the working partner died, their salary would go.
Two single policies, each sized to the part of the household that person supports, keep the planning clear.
If you foster as a single carer, your cover carries even more weight. Your own children would rely on you alone, and the home might need selling if fostering income stopped.
How Hi Tomorrow helps foster carers
We ask how fostering fits into your household income, what your mortgage is and who depends on you. Then we recommend cover from our panel and explain how each insurer would view your fostering earnings.
We will be straight with you if income protection is hard to arrange on fostering income alone, and look at alternatives such as critical illness cover.