Insurance World

Life insurance is one of the most important types of insurance you can get, although many people don’t get it early enough or have inadequate cover. If you don’t have life insurance yet or you are not sure if your policy is good enough, then there useful tips will help you to decide when and what type of life insurance to get:

Get insurance now

Right now life insurance is at an all time low, so whatever age you are the time to get insurance is now. In fact, the younger you are then the cheaper the insurance is likely to be, because you are less of a risk to the lender. By getting insurance now you will have the peace of mind that should the worst happen, you will be covered.

How much insurance?

Although life insurance is relatively cheap, most people don’t have an adequate level of cover. You might think that Ј100,000 of cover for a few pounds a month seems good, but Ј100,000 is not that much. Although a payout of Ј100,000 might seem like a lot of money, that money might have to support your family for the next 15 or 20 years. Many people simply do not have an adequate level of cover to support their families after their death.

Working out how much you need

If you are looking for life insurance, then the best way to work out how much cover you need is to work out the amount your family needs to support them each year, and then multiply this by 25 to allow for tax over 15 or 20 years. This is the amount of cover your family would need to support their current lifestyle for a significant period of time. Obviously, the amount you need also depends on how much you can afford. Generally, the more you can pay the better.

Term insurance

The most common form of life insurance is term life insurance. This form of life insurance is cheap, and you pay a set amount each month for the term of the agreement. You work out how much you want your family to receive in the event of your death. If you stop paying the monthly payments you lose all the money you have put in, and if you are still alive at the end of the term then there is no payout. This form of life insurance is cheap but does not guarantee payout.

Whole life insurance

The other most common form of life insurance is whole life insurance. Basically, you are insured for your entire life. The amount you pay is put into an investment fund, with your premiums usually remaining the same for the first few years before going up. This type of insurance is more expensive but has the advantage that payout is guaranteed.

Other factors

Before you get life insurance, make sure that you work out exactly what sort of cover you need, and look at any other factors that will affect the price. If you smoke or have poor health then some insurance policies will charge more. Whatever type of life insurance you get, it pays to get insurance as soon as you can and for as much as you can afford.

Critical illness insurance offers cover for certain specified conditions such as cancer, heart problems, kidney failure, loss of limbs, etc., The cover is quite simple and straightforward, in that if you are diagnosed with one of the severe illnesses listed in your policy a payment is made. On average 35 conditions would be considered as falling into this category with most companies. There is just one company, Virgin, who vary the cover by offering severity-based payments when cancer is diagnosed. Obviously with an illness such as cancer, there are various degrees of severity and with increasing success rates in the treatment of this disease; this seems a fair way of dealing with the situation.

The Financial Services Authority are not certain that people realize the limitations on the number of severe medical conditions covered by their policies and that they could be in for a nasty awakening if they assume that every serious illness will be covered.

With this in mind, the Prudential have brought out a policy which lists 140 severe conditions, which will be covered by their plan. Rather than the “black and white” decision made on diagnosis, this promises a grading of the payout according to the severity of the condition. A spokesman for the Prudential says the policy, named the Prudential’s Flexible Protection Plan, will mean that more payments will be made to insurers with debilitating illnesses, whose illnesses would otherwise be outside the scope of the insurance and who would then get nothing at all.

An improvement then on “black and white”, but could this leave a “grey” area instead? Apart from knowing that they are, in fact, likely to be paid out, the decision could be left open to argument regarding the grading of the level of severity of the condition: therefore consumers could be worried and confused about the final amount agreed. What insurers would grade as relatively minor may appear very different to someone newly diagnosed with a condition. It could be a case of accepting the fact that a smaller payment is better than nothing at all, but it could also be that the payment doesn’t match expectations. It would be advisable to make sure that you thoroughly understand the full implications and terms of the policy before considering taking cover.

Conventional critical illness cover, for a typical 30 year old family man, who doesn’t smoke would be around Ј24 per month, whereas it could more than double with this new plan.

It may be that critical illness cover is not the product for you. For financial security for your family, in the event of your death, life insurance would be the most important planning tool. To cover outgoings if you are incapable to working, income protection insurance could be useful. This offers cover for common ailments too, and not just the critical ones.

For advice and help on the type of insurances available, the easiest course of action is to find an internet broker, who’ll be able to answer your questions and come up with a range of quotes with a minimum of trouble to you and ensure that you arrange the insurance cover which is right for you and your family.