What is Life Insurance?
Life Insurance is designed to pay out a tax free lump sum on death.
Many people use it to protect a mortgage or other debts, to ensure their loved ones are financially secure after their death, to meet an inheritance tax bill or to pay funeral expenses.
How Much Does Life Insurance Cost?
It’s impossible to give an exact answer to the question of how much Life Insurance costs because it will depend on individual circumstances.
However, this guide aims to give you a rough idea of the premiums, which are largely based on:
- The amount of cover you require.
- How long you want the policy to be in force.
- The type of Life Insurance policy you choose
- Personal factors, such as your age, health and smoker status.
Policy Factors Affecting the Cost of Life Insurance
- Length of Cover
How long you need the cover for will impact the price of the policy. The longer you need cover for, the older you will be at the end of the policy and naturally the higher the risk of you passing away over the policy’s lifespan.
- Level of Cover
The amount of insurance you need will naturally affect premiums, with higher amounts costing more to insure.
- Type of Premium
You can have guaranteed or reviewable premiums when it comes to Life Insurance. Reviewable premiums may be cheaper at the outset, but they can be raised over the course of the policy. It’s generally the case that guaranteed premiums will work out cheaper over the full policy term as they won’t increase over time.
Types of Life Insurance
There are two main types of Life Insurance
- Term insurance
- Whole of Life Insurance
Term insurance lasts for a set term, say 25 years, and then ends. It’s often used to cover an outstanding mortgage or provide family protection until an age where children are no longer dependent.
One type of term insurance is known as Family Income Benefit. This also lasts for a set term, but rather than pay out out a lump sum on death it pays out an income instead.
Whole of Life Insurance, as the name suggests, will cover you for your whole life until you pass away, whenever that might be.
As the risk is assured to happen with Whole of Life Insurance, premiums are far more expensive than for term insurance. For this reason, the sum assured is usually much lower.
Typical uses for Whole of Life Cover include funeral expenses and inheritance tax bills.
Personal Factors Affecting Life Insurance Premiums
- Your age
The older we are, the higher the risk of passing away and so premiums will increase based on your age at the start of the policy.
- Your smoker status
Smoking shortens lifespans and raises the risk of deadly illnesses, so smokers pay higher premiums – sometimes at least double – than non-smokers.
- Hazardous activities
If you participate in hazardous pursuits or hobbies it’s worth discussing this with your adviser as it could impact premiums depending on the nature of these activities.
- Your current state of health
Any pre-existing medical conditions you have, as well as your height and weight, will all be considered when calculating the cost of Life Insurance premiums.
When getting Life Insurance quotes online, it’s vital to remember that they will always assume you’re in good health. If you have any underlying health issues, it’s essential you provide these details so the risk can be properly priced, ensuring you’re covered should the worst happen.
Additional Policy Options
Life Insurance policies can come with a wide variety of additional benefits, things such as Terminal Illness Cover (a very common feature), waiver of premium and bereavement counselling.
Such policy options may be offered for an additional premium or may be built into the standard price of the policy.
- Joint Life Insurance
It’s possible to include your spouse / partner on your Life Insurance policy to secure a payout should something happen to either of you. This will likely be cheaper than having two separate policies, if only marginally. The downside is that a joint policy will only ever pay out once, potentially leaving the surviving partner without cover, whereas two separate policies will cover two separate deaths.
- Terminal Illness Benefit
This is included as standard on most Life Insurance policies and won’t impact the cost – it’s typically built in to the premiums. It’s designed to pay the benefit early if you’re diagnosed with a terminal illness (given less than 12 months to live).
- Critical Illness Cover
Adding Critical Illness Insurance to your life cover will increase the premiums because the risk of you suffering a critical illness is higher than the risk of you passing away. This additional option ensures a payout for an insurer-defined critical illness (the big three illnesses securing payouts are cancer, heart attacks and strokes).
- Health and wellbeing services
These often come for free with Life Insurance without the need for any extra premium. They might include bereavement counselling for your loved ones should you pass away or access to a second medical opinion / best doctors service if you’re diagnosed with a serious illness.
Examples of How Much Term Life Insurance May Cost
As has been stressed, there can be no standard example of the cost of Life Insurance because individual clients and insurers all differ, but below are some test quotes for a 30-year-old, a 40-year-old and a 50-year-old.
The monthly premiums were retrieved from the Drewberry’s online comparison engine on February 20th, 2019 and were based on:
- No critical illness cover
- A non-smoker
- An office worker
- An assumption of good health
- £250,000 of cover over 20 years.
Finding out how much life insurance will cost you
To get a better idea of policy prices and cover levels for your particular situation, try our quick and easy online Life Insurance comparison quote service.
We are here to help you make an informed decision when it comes to your financial protection whilst finding you the most competitive terms on offer.
Why Speak to Us…
We started Drewberry because we were tired of being treated like a number and not getting the service we all deserve when it comes to things as important as protecting our health and our finances. Below are just a few reasons why it makes sense to let us help.
- There is no fee for our service
- We are independent and impartial
Drewberry isn’t tied to any insurance company, so we can provide completely impartial advice to make sure you get the most appropriate policy based solely on your needs.
- We’ve got bargaining power on our side
This allows us to negotiate better premiums for you than you going direct yourself.
- You’ll speak to a dedicated expert from start to finish
You will speak to a named expert with a direct telephone and email. No more automated machines and no more being sent from pillar to post – you’ll have someone to speak to who knows you.
- Benefit from our 5-star service
We pride ourselves on providing a 5-star service, as can be seen from our 3768 and growing independent client reviews rating us at 4.92 / 5.
- Gain the protection of regulated advice
You are protected. Where we provide a regulated advice service we are responsible for the policy we set-up for you. Doing it yourself or going direct to an insurer won’t provide this protection, so you won’t benefit from these securities.
- Claims support when you need it the most
You have support should you need to make a claim. The most important thing when it comes to insurance is that claims are paid and quickly. We are here to support you during the claims process and make sure it’s as smooth and stress free as possible.