Value Added Current Accounts

23 Oct 2009

A value added current account is one that costs money, typically a monthly fee, but comes with various benefits.

The idea is that by buying the account you get access to all of the benefits for significantly less than if you bought them individually yourself.

Now this is almost invariably undeniably true and on the face of it appears very good: and therefore quite a few people do take out this type of account themselves, and banks are often keen to sell them. So what is the problem?

Well the problem simply is this: most people get the account and then either forget about the benefits that are available to them on the account, or just are unsure how to use them and don't actually use them. Indeed one survey has suggested that around 10% of those who had such an account did not use any single one of the many extras that are available on this sort of account!

The bottom line seems to be that these accounts can be worth it if you have given them thought and found out that you are going to use enough of the extra services that they offer to make it worthwhile. The trouble is that often some of the benefits, whilst very valuable, there is no way of knowing if you are going to need or not, and many people end up never needing some of those services.

For instance some accounts will have services such as access to a free legal helpline. Undoubtedly this is a very valuable service, but of course many individuals will not use that service and therefore to that extent the money they pay towards that service is not worth it for them. However that said many like the peace of mind offered by some of the perks of these accounts almost to the point where they could be viewed as a form of insurance, and it would be too simplistic to say that this sort of account is never value for money, it just depends on your circumstances and how you use it.

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