Viewing 38 posts - 1 through 38 (of 38 total)
  • Life Insurance – Worth It?
  • curiousyellow
    Free Member

    The missus and I have taken on some joint financial commitments meaning she needs me to stay alive a bit more than usual. I’ve been thinking about taking out life insurance to cover the costs of our joint liability in case something were to happen to me and want to know if anyone else has any similar arrangements or if I am being morbid.

    Is it prudent to take out insurance just to cover my side of the liability, or should I increase it to cover the full share? Is it better to take insurance out to give her a bit of a cushion as well? Also, how simple is it to increase the coverage if we took on more responsibilities later on?

    I know “it depends” will be the answer to quite a lot of this, but would like to hear what you think.

    (I must admit a large reason for wanting to take out insurance is the cycle commute to work and the increased coverage of cycling fatalities in the media.)

    footflaps
    Full Member

    If you’re relatively young, it’s pretty cheap.

    grizedaleforest
    Full Member

    It’s probably one of the more sensible insurances and depending on your circumstances isn’t normally too expensive. Why don’t you cost out both options and see what the costs are?

    jekkyl
    Full Member

    Take enough out to cover the whole liability and the cost of your funeral. Consider if one morning you did die and your wife would be in mourning. Having that cushion there would mean she wouldn’t have to worry about that liability at all and she could give you a send off without touching savings. Life insurance is very cheap.

    thestabiliser
    Free Member

    No, No, No, No, No,

    Insure HER for the full the amount and then, when you’ve got a good alibi sorted….KERBLAMOW – she ‘acidentally’ saws her head off with her hair straighteners.

    Job’s a good un.

    Nezbo
    Free Member

    Me and Mrs Nezbo took out life insurance when we was applying for our mortgage, we didn’t know what we would need from the insurance and ended up getting the all singing and all dancing insurance with critical life insurance, and when I became terminally ill the insurance have been great and they made it so easy.

    I honestly thought “it would never happen to me” because being fit and healthy and doing shed load of miles on the bike etc…

    I recommend Friends Life 🙂

    joeelston
    Free Member

    If the peace of mind outweighs the financial aspect then sounds like something worth having.

    DaveyBoyWonder
    Free Member

    We did exactly the same as Nezbo – full life insurance, critical illness, income protection (for me – wife is a teacher so she’s going to have to do something really, really bad to lose her job!).
    Not a lot of money but well worth having because, as in Nezbo’s case, you never know what life will throw at you and we’re going through a claim with Friends Life (as well) at the moment. Sh*t happens. You don’t know when but you may as well be insured for it for the sake of a few quid a month…

    curiousyellow
    Free Member

    Ok. I will check out Friends Life. Thanks folks.

    nedrapier
    Full Member

    If you think you might die, it’s not a bad idea.

    Don’t forget if the salesperson pushes for a whole life policy, its because their commission is massive.

    thegreatape
    Free Member

    I’ve got a federation policy, pension death benefits, plus another colleague one (everyone pays £2.50 when a scheme member dies, amounts to about £45,000). Altogether it comes to enough to pay off the mortgage and leave 7 years net salary for the wife and kids. Costs about £12 a month, which I happily pay to know that they’ll be financially ok if anything happens to me.

    curiousyellow
    Free Member

    I thought you were only allowed one life insurance policy?

    anagallis_arvensis
    Full Member

    Life insurance to pay off mortgage if either of us dies is much cheaper than insuring the dog! No brainer really.

    thegreatape
    Free Member

    Me? Don’t know if that’s true, but only one of them is a proper life insurance policy (with an insurer).

    slowjo
    Free Member

    You can have as many life insurance policies as you like…well as you can afford.

    This assertion is made from a position of knowledge not hearsay. I have been advising since 1983 so I sort of have a reasonable idea….well I hope I do!

    Friends are a decent enough company but don’t ignore the other major players. Friends Income Protection used to be the dog’s danglies for e.g. but not any more. There have been subtle changes recently (to new policies only) that mean they aren’t quite as dominant in the market as they used to be.

    Ro5ey
    Free Member

    Get some.

    And it will be the best money you’ll ever waste.

    Hopefully

    br
    Free Member

    It’s pence, why have you never had any before?

    curiousyellow
    Free Member

    No, never had it before. Didn’t have any dependents and had rich parents!

    towzer
    Full Member

    ? have you checked your employment contract – many have death in service benefits. (As well as life assurrance I’d think about illness/inability to work cover etc)

    I’d say you want to cover your costs plus to be fair to parner – ie build them a bit of breathing space financially speaking.

    allmountainventure
    Free Member

    When my dad was killed it was worth it. Couldn’t bring him back but made a big difference to a non working (at the time) mum left behind with 2 small kids.

    samuri
    Free Member

    It’s better when you’re a couple and you’re getting life insurance on your mortgage but can only afford to insure one of you. You then have to clinically assess who might be the biggest loss and insure that person.

    God, the arguments that created. As a bloke it’s simple, biggest earner gets insured. Of course, this meant I was calling her a whore and I hated her and all her family. Obviously I didn’t say any of those things but by insuring myself, making sure she would be financially secure…I IMPLIED it.

    chiefinspector
    Free Member

    TBH, you are much more likely to get ill than you are to die. While life insurance is a great thing it is more worthwhile to have critical illness cover in place (or both if your willing to pay).

    I was diagnosed with a critical illness earlier this year but have gone on to make an almost full recovery and i had 2 policies in place that both paid out. I had been paying them for almost 10 years at roughly £30 per policy and was considering cancelling the payments as i didn’t think it was worth it. Thank god i never did. As someone who as been through it i can’t stress enough how important it is as you just never know whats going to happen.

    curiousyellow
    Free Member

    Yup checking death in service benefits at the moment.

    Been doing some reading on it as well. So what’s the deal with mortgage assurance versus life insurance? I get that the mortgage assurance payments decrease as the term ticks down, but what happens at the end? Do you get any of the money you paid in back?

    @samuri Marry at haste repent at leisure eh? I’ve been there.

    no_eyed_deer
    Free Member

    Surely it’s only any use if you die… and then, who cares? Money for old 26er wheels if you ask me.. 😉

    jekkyl
    Full Member

    no you don’t get any money back if you don’t die. Take out a level term policy iiwy as they’re not much more expensive and the cover remains the same instead of decreasing in line with mortgage.

    kcal
    Full Member

    employment death in service is worth a look; if you think that, when you need the cover, you’ll still be there. Otherwise, get your own cover now while it’s cheaper..

    death (soon) is not so likely but handy to have cover in case. Critical illness cover is possibly more likely as above – but because of that, and as you get older lots more things are likely to happen, it becomes more expensive – prohibitively so for us.

    So, simple joint life cover for us..

    jambalaya
    Free Member

    OP – my suggestion would be just get simple term life cover (i.e. you pick for how long you want it) – you can look at joint life with the Mrs too if you want. I used to have quite a lot, less now I’m 50 as it’s running off and we’d planned it that way as kids are grown up and gone. I would get the full amount not just “your share” of course it’s cost dependent. As for “rich parents” I guess it’s possible that if you die first they may not leave your wife anything, it’s not uncommon.

    The full benefits cover above is very good but it’s much more expensive.

    Mortgage assurance I wouldn’t bother with, just get term life.

    Basically the younger you are when you start the policy the cheaper it will be, so whilst you can add on later it generally gets progressively more expensive.

    footflaps
    Full Member

    We get something like 4x salary death in service benefit through work.

    dooosuk
    Free Member

    We get something like 4x salary death in service benefit through work.

    Which is all very well in your current job, but your next one might not offer it as a benefit.

    DaveyBoyWonder
    Free Member

    TBH, you are much more likely to get ill than you are to die.

    what. the. actual. ****?

    thomthumb
    Free Member

    worth getting seperate policys; so there is no need to renegotiate if one of you ‘pays out’.

    dannybgoode
    Full Member

    Insure yourself for as high an amount as a) you feel sensible and b) you can afford now whilst you are fit and healthy.

    As also suggested each get your own policies – it doesn’t work out too much more expensive than joint life cover. Seriously consider critical illness also.

    Reasons

    1/ it will be cheap now

    2/ If (as happened to me) you suffer a serious illness trying to increase your cover later will be either very expensive or just not possible at all.

    3/ If you go your own separate ways you are still covered (see 2 above)

    4/ Inflation does nasty things to what seems like a lot of money now (bear in mind 25 year terms are not uncommon)

    5/ DISCLOSE EVERYTHING – If you smoke or have done in the last 12 months tell them when asked. If you have had a medical investigations, tell them. You won’t be around to sort out the mess if the insurance co starts asking questions when a pay out is needed (they are generally pretty good but if they sense an opportunity not to pay they will take it).

    Cheers

    Danny B

    grantway
    Free Member

    Only if you have debt IE Mortgage or loan as it would pay either off
    instead of leaving it to your partner or a member of the family whom may of
    taken the debt out for you.

    br
    Free Member

    Only if you have debt IE Mortgage or loan as it would pay either off
    instead of leaving it to your partner or a member of the family whom may of
    taken the debt out for you.

    Eh – wouldn’t you rather that they were set up for life, rather than just ‘evens’?

    As said it’s pence, about £10pcm will buy you +£100k of cover even for someone in their 30’s.

    chiefinspector
    Free Member

    TBH, you are much more likely to get ill than you are to die.

    what. the. actual. ****?

    Do your research DavyBoySmith. This is what all the insurance companies will tell you. More and more people are living longer and in this time the chances of getting a critical illness increase.

    DaveyBoyWonder
    Free Member

    I’ve not researched the subject thoroughly but last time I checked, there is a 100% chance you’ll die and less than a 100% chance you’ll get a critical illness.

    Therefore you are NOT more likely to get ill than die.

    That is unless you can show me some evidence that either we won’t all die/there is a +100% chance of contracting an illness. Which there isn’t.

    konagirl
    Free Member

    The life insurance cover only covers the period stated on the insurance document, so generally until retirement age. The chance of an individual of working age being diagnosed with a critical (though not necessarily terminal) illness is greater than the chance of that individual dying over the period of cover (i.e. generally before they are 60/65).

    And, you can be diagnosed with multiple critical ilnesses during the period of cover. As long as the original policy allows you to continue with the policy if it pays out once, you would be entitled to claim again if you are diagnosed with something else, or you could claim multiply and simultaneously if you have a number of different injuries or illnesses that prohibited you from work under the different Sections of the cover.

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