Dull topic of the day: Life Insurance

[duncs500]

With the little one on the way, I need to make sure should anything happen to me at least the mortgage is covered etc. I've got a bit of cover through work, but need to top it up.

Seems like a bit of a minefield, wouldn't want her to have problems after the fact. Anyone got any recommendations?

Apologies for how dull this thread is.

[GG.]

As with mortgages - use a broker if you can.

Life insurance is pretty cheap generally at our age. Few different boxes you can tick (over and above payout size), i.e. length of cover, inflation adjusted, premiums paid.

Best to look at it as a package with income protection and critical illness cover and adjust to your budget.

[DeskJockey]

What [mention]GG.[/mention] says.

We've got the lot covered so that whatever else happens we're financially secure and won't need to worry about money.

Worst case scenario the mortgage is cleared and a significant lump sum paid out.

Ours is all through Wesleyan on top of work benefits as they do good deals for the medics.

[Simon]

What's the standard work package nowadays? I get 4x gross salary, including bonuses and car allowance etc. It means that the Mrs would be able to clear the mortgage and have about £125k left over. Add in selling my car etc and she should have enough for 5-7 years or so of living, mortgage free. I'd like to extend that too, what with the little'un is around.

[Holley]

12 years on the forum and finally my speciality comes up
If you want pointers just give me a call, I run an insurance shop in Northants. Also feel free to ask questions here or PM me.

[JonMad]

12 years on the forum and finally my speciality comes up
If you want pointers just give me a call, I run an insurance shop in Northants. Also feel free to ask questions here or PM me.

Will try and remember that, some of our policies are expiring soon so need to work out what to do next.

[duncs500]

What's the standard work package nowadays? I get 4x gross salary, including bonuses and car allowance etc. It means that the Mrs would be able to clear the mortgage and have about £125k left over. Add in selling my car etc and she should have enough for 5-7 years or so of living, mortgage free. I'd like to extend that too, what with the little'un is around.

You obviously have a good mortgage to earnings ratio!

Good advice guys, thanks.

[V8Granite]

Life insurance is silly money for me, so any advice for someone who can travel to every country would be much appreciated.

I think the last quote I had was for £250 a month or so.

Dave!

[Holley]

Life insurance is silly money for me, so any advice for someone who can travel to every country would be much appreciated.

I think the last quote I had was for £250 a month or so.

Dave!

I've got one client that does 4 weeks on and 4 weeks off working in Angola and I managed to find an insurer that didn't load his premium (I will admit, it took quite a bit of research).

Which countries do you work in and how long do you stay there for?

[Holley]

12 years on the forum and finally my speciality comes up
If you want pointers just give me a call, I run an insurance shop in Northants. Also feel free to ask questions here or PM me.

Will try and remember that, some of our policies are expiring soon so need to work out what to do next.

my website is www.holleyprotect.co.uk if you want to bookmark (I haven't updated it in a while, but I think I'm one of the few places you can play with quotes online without having to input your personal data).

Although I have a shop just off the high street, 99% of what I do is over the phone (the shop was really an investment instead of paying rent all the time)

[DeskJockey]

What's the standard work package nowadays? I get 4x gross salary, including bonuses and car allowance etc. It means that the Mrs would be able to clear the mortgage and have about £125k left over. Add in selling my car etc and she should have enough for 5-7 years or so of living, mortgage free. I'd like to extend that too, what with the little'un is around.

Mine is similar, but I pay a top up to raise the salary multiplier to 8. That with the other policies will provide my wife with no mortgage and a lump sum big enough that she can maintain a similar standard of living (plus funding for additional help) until the children are through uni.

[Holley]

What's the standard work package nowadays? I get 4x gross salary, including bonuses and car allowance etc. It means that the Mrs would be able to clear the mortgage and have about £125k left over. Add in selling my car etc and she should have enough for 5-7 years or so of living, mortgage free. I'd like to extend that too, what with the little'un is around.

You obviously have a good mortgage to earnings ratio!

Good advice guys, thanks.

Work packages generally tend to have death in service (life cover, typically 4xsalary), sick pay (but normally for a limited period, typically 3-6 months) and occasionally private medical cover. What's rare to see is work places giving critical illness cover or long term income protection.

The only drawbacks for just relying solely on works cover is if you suffer adverse health and change occupations that no longer gives the same benefits. It could make it difficult to buy your own coverage. *Most of my clients will typically view their works package as extra family protection and have their own policy to cover the mortgage

Also I made the mistake of never advising clients to purchase income protection if they already had this as a benefit through work. In my time I've had 2 clients lose that benefit whilst claiming on income protection as the company was forced to make cut backs through large scale redundancies (the employer generally owns the plans, not you).

Now I don't tell people they should have it anyway as it's likely a rare occurrence, I just point out the potential drawbacks and let them decide for themselves as everyones attitude to risk is different.

*most is not actually a fair view as I'm aware that clients that contact me are doing so because they want or considering additional cover. If I conducted a survey of the general public, it would probably be very different.

[Ascender]

12 years on the forum and finally my speciality comes up
If you want pointers just give me a call, I run an insurance shop in Northants. Also feel free to ask questions here or PM me.

Will try and remember that, some of our policies are expiring soon so need to work out what to do next.

my website is www.holleyprotect.co.uk if you want to bookmark (I haven't updated it in a while, but I think I'm one of the few places you can play with quotes online without having to input your personal data).

Although I have a shop just off the high street, 99% of what I do is over the phone (the shop was really an investment instead of paying rent all the time)

Thanks for posting the link, I'm just reviewing this stuff too so will check out your site.

[Simon]

What's the standard work package nowadays? I get 4x gross salary, including bonuses and car allowance etc. It means that the Mrs would be able to clear the mortgage and have about £125k left over. Add in selling my car etc and she should have enough for 5-7 years or so of living, mortgage free. I'd like to extend that too, what with the little'un is around.

You obviously have a good mortgage to earnings ratio!

Good advice guys, thanks.

Work packages generally tend to have death in service (life cover, typically 4xsalary), sick pay (but normally for a limited period, typically 3-6 months) and occasionally private medical cover. What's rare to see is work places giving critical illness cover or long term income protection.

The only drawbacks for just relying solely on works cover is if you suffer adverse health and change occupations that no longer gives the same benefits. It could make it difficult to buy your own coverage. *Most of my clients will typically view their works package as extra family protection and have their own policy to cover the mortgage

Also I made the mistake of never advising clients to purchase income protection if they already had this as a benefit through work. In my time I've had 2 clients lose that benefit whilst claiming on income protection as the company was forced to make cut backs through large scale redundancies (the employer generally owns the plans, not you).

Now I don't tell people they should have it anyway as it's likely a rare occurrence, I just point out the potential drawbacks and let them decide for themselves as everyones attitude to risk is different.

*most is not actually a fair view as I'm aware that clients that contact me are doing so because they want or considering additional cover. If I conducted a survey of the general public, it would probably be very different.

Your quote pages are broken

[Holley]

You obviously have a good mortgage to earnings ratio!

Good advice guys, thanks.

Work packages generally tend to have death in service (life cover, typically 4xsalary), sick pay (but normally for a limited period, typically 3-6 months) and occasionally private medical cover. What's rare to see is work places giving critical illness cover or long term income protection.

The only drawbacks for just relying solely on works cover is if you suffer adverse health and change occupations that no longer gives the same benefits. It could make it difficult to buy your own coverage. *Most of my clients will typically view their works package as extra family protection and have their own policy to cover the mortgage

Also I made the mistake of never advising clients to purchase income protection if they already had this as a benefit through work. In my time I've had 2 clients lose that benefit whilst claiming on income protection as the company was forced to make cut backs through large scale redundancies (the employer generally owns the plans, not you).

Now I don't tell people they should have it anyway as it's likely a rare occurrence, I just point out the potential drawbacks and let them decide for themselves as everyones attitude to risk is different.

*most is not actually a fair view as I'm aware that clients that contact me are doing so because they want or considering additional cover. If I conducted a survey of the general public, it would probably be very different.

Your quote pages are broken

Oh Im on it, will call them now to fix

edit: the Network I'm part of updated the insurer list last week. I'm told it should be working later today

[Delphi]

I need to sort out some life insurance but it seems very expensive for a man of my advanced years (52).

[Holley]

I need to sort out some life insurance but it seems very expensive for a man of my advanced years (52).

Life Cover shouldn't be too expensive. Rough figures would be £14-18 for every £100k of cover for a non smoking 52 year old. Admittedly critical illness does get pricey in your 50's.

Worth considering AIG's Start range as instead of the traditional fixed premium, prices are cheaper and increase with age. Some don't like this but over the years I've found half of my clients seem to change plans every 1-4 years (house move, remortgage, divorce, job move etc) so it can be a cost effective way to cover yourself

[JonMad]

Holley, this is probably one of those 'how long is a piece of string' questions, but I'll ask it anyway. Is there a rule of thumb for how much cover to go for? For life and/or critical illness? Any remaining mortgages cleared + X year's worth of take home pay, for example?

I suppose you might make some cut backs if you were forced into other expenses such as additional care costs, but might not want to have to really cut back.

Good point about kids' ages being a factor as you might choose to cover enough for your other half not to have to work until they're old enough to fend for themselves.

[Swervin_Mervin]

I need to sort out some life insurance but it seems very expensive for a man of my advanced years (52).

Life Cover shouldn't be too expensive. Rough figures would be £14-18 for every £100k of cover for a non smoking 52 year old. Admittedly critical illness does get pricey in your 50's.

Worth considering AIG's Start range as instead of the traditional fixed premium, prices are cheaper and increase with age. Some don't like this but over the years I've found half of my clients seem to change plans every 1-4 years (house move, remortgage, divorce, job move etc) so it can be a cost effective way to cover yourself

For reference I'm paying about £20 for every £100k of cover on a decreasing term AIG Life policy. I'm 42 now but I think I've had that policy since I was 34. I suspect it might be a touch pricey though.

[Holley]

Holley, this is probably one of those 'how long is a piece of string' questions, but I'll ask it anyway. Is there a rule of thumb for how much cover to go for? For life and/or critical illness? Any remaining mortgages cleared + X year's worth of take home pay, for example?

I suppose you might make some cut backs if you were forced into other expenses such as additional care costs, but might not want to have to really cut back.

Good point about kids' ages being a factor as you might choose to cover enough for your other half not to have to work until they're old enough to fend for themselves.

There's no straight answer with this as everyone's situation is slightly different, so don't tend to use any of the old formula's we were taught (i.e. mortgage covered + percentage of income till pension age and so on).

So I will look at what a clients got through work, old plans, income from other sources, partners situation and even help they might get from family.

I tell clients that Insurance is a tool that buys you time, from when illness occurs to when you can work again (or someone else time when you die). For some having the mortgage cleared isn't enough as they still have other outgoings to cover, for others it is enough.

The other factor is the emotional impact that's rare for someone to think about when buying insurance. A lot of clients will say that they only need to insure themselves because their partner doesn't work and so doesn't contribute. But how motivated are you going to be to work if your partner is ill in hospital (or in my case, it was my daughter).

That's just some of the variables, so it gets quite messy to try and pin down an actual number.

I will give pointers but prefer to come from an affordability angle. Seeing as their isn't really a straight answer, I often advise to go for the best and most you can comfortably afford and present idea's that will work.


PS I'm told the website calculator is now fully operational