Financial Products
Students need to know about insurance, credit cards and loans and savings products. Often these will form the context for other questions within the finance part of the course.
Tasks/Ideas
- Leckie Higher Applications Student Book – Chapter 11 – Exercise 11A
- A PowerPoint lesson all about Insurance: Insurance Lesson
- A useful task that is easy to run is to give students situations, and challenge them to find you the best product on the market. Example questions:
- I have £4000 in savings. I’d like to deposit the money for 5 years. I’d like at least £500 to be easy-access, in case I need to dip into these savings.
- I want to buy a car for £9000, and I’ll need a loan. I have £2500 in savings.
- I’m going on a skiing holiday to Norway. I have no pre-existing medical conditions. I want travel insurance in case I get injured, but I also want to insure my skis.
- Are there any risks I need to consider for each of the above answers?
- Most companies have policy documents available online. e.g. Direct Line Car Insurance, Barclay’s Savings Account, Santander Loan Document. What risks are you taking if you purchase one of these products? What risks are these companies taking on by selling them to you? Are any of the policies surprising?
Inflation
Tasks/Ideas
- Leckie Higher Applications Student Book – Chapter 11 – Exercise 11B
- This worksheet looks at petrol prices and inflation.
- You can’t mention inflation without discussing The Economist’s Big Mac Index.
- The Bank of England have a useful calculator: BoE Calculator.
- Ever wondered what items are in the Customer Price Index’s basket? Wonder no more!
- Use these historical petrol prices and have students work out the effective rate of inflation between two difference years.