Legal & General Life Insurance [REVIEW]

Who Are Legal & General?

In 1836, Sergeant John Adams and five other lawyers formed Legal & General (L&G) in a coffee shop on London’s Chancery Lane.

As it approaches 200 years of experience providing insurance and other financial services, Legal & General has become a world leader in protection. It has more than 10 million customers and manages more than £1 trillion in assets worldwide.

Legal & General Life Insurance offers an unlimited maximum benefit, so you can choose exactly how much cover you need.

It’s one of the oldest and largest UK financial services providers and paid almost £400 million in Life Insurance claims in 2019.

Egle Blusiute
Independent Protection Expert at Drewberry

Legal & General Life Insurance

Policy Overview

• A comprehensive Life Insurance policy with an unlimited maximum benefit.
• Opt for Critical Illness Cover for an extra premium. This pays out your full benefit if you develop one of 31 critical conditions.
• Child cover comes automatically with adult Critical Illness Insurance. Moreover, it includes some unique features along with it.

Documentation

What Does Legal & General Life Insurance Cover?

Key Policy Factors

Unlimited Maximum Life Insurance Benefit

Legal & General does not limit the maximum amount of cover you can have with Life Insurance. You’re therefore able to pick as large a benefit as you need.

Guaranteed Insurability

Legal & General lets you increase your benefit without answering further medical questions if you go through certain life events. To take advantage of this, you must apply on or before your 55th birthday. For joint policies, this applies to the oldest insured person.

These events are:

• Marriage / civil partnership
• Birth / adoption of a child
• An increase in your earnings following a change in employment / promotion
• An increase in your mortgage on moving house / undertaking home improvements.

You must inform Legal & General within 6 months of the event. The maximum increase is the lower of 50% of your original benefit or £150,000, except for increases in your earnings or mortgage.

For an earnings increase, the maximum cap is your original benefit multiplied by the percentage increase in your earnings. For a mortgage increase, Legal & General caps it at the increase in your mortgage.

Split a Joint Policy

If you take out a joint policy and later divorce, dissolve your civil partnership or separate, Legal & General lets you split the joint policy into two single ones.

You must inform Legal & General within 6 months of finalising your separation. The maximum amount of cover for each new policy is the lower of £1 million or the original amount of cover on the joint policy.

Both new policies cannot extend past each party’s 70th birthday.

Child Critical Illness Cover Free With Adult Cover

Child cover is free as standard when you choose adult Critical Illness Insurance. This not only pays out if your child develops a critical illness between 30 days old and their 22nd birthday, but also in a number of other situations that makes it fairly unique.

For example, Legal & General’s child Critical Illness Cover offers £1,000 towards childcare with a registered childminder for a child under 5 years old in the 18 months after a parent gets a critical diagnosis.

Legal & General also pays a £5,000 hospitalisation benefit if your child suffers an accident leaving them with physical injuries needing at least 28 days in hospital.

Indexed Cover Available

To prevent inflation eroding the purchasing power of your benefit over time, Legal & General lets you index your benefit. This means it will rise each year in line with Retail Prices Index (RPI) inflation.

The maximum annual increase is 10%.

As your benefit goes up, your premiums will also rise each year by the rate of inflation multiplied by 1.5. So, for example, if inflation is 2% your premiums will rise by 3.5%.

Additional Benefits

Accidental Hospitalisation Benefit

If you add Critical Illness Insurance, Legal & General offers an accidental hospitalisation benefit of £5,000.

This pays out if you suffer physical injuries as a direct result of an accident that leave you hospitalised for at least 28 consecutive days.

Advanced Funeral Payment

Legal & General will advance up to £10,000 of your payout to a funeral director to cover funeral costs if probate delays your family receiving your benefit.

Umbrella Benefits Under Wellbeing Support

Legal and General Income Protection policyholders get access to Wellbeing Support, a service provided by RedArc Assured Limited, which provides a range of practical and emotional assistance when you need it the most. The support services include:

• Practical and emotional support
  If needed you can be assigned a dedicated nurse who can provide practical and emotional support as often and for as long as you need.
• Second medical opinion
  If diagnosed with a serious health condition you can get a second medical opinion from another medical professional. This can provide additional support and guidance at a stressful and overwhelming time by either reassuring you that you’re on the best course of treatment or by recommending alternative options.
• Mental health support
  Long-term support for a range of mental health conditions including stress, anxiety, depression or trauma including organising specialist counselling if appropriate.
• Recovery from illness or injury
  Manage your recovery after illness or injury with return to work coaching, lifestyle advice and additional services such as physiotherapy and speech therapy.
• Diagnosis understanding
  If you were to be diagnosed with an illness you can use RedArc to answer any questions you may have about the diagnosis its self and what the next steps are in terms of treatment.
• Dietary and lifestyle support
  Get advice on a range of dietary and lifestyle topics such as, how to avoid illness, ways to minimise the risk of becoming unwell and how to stay as fit and healthy as possible.
• Serious and chronic illnesses management
  Get guidance and advice on what the best ways of managing illness are and the treatment possibilities which are available to you.
• Later life planning
  Get help and support when it comes to planning your future with information on government services, retirement housing and finances.

Private Diagnostics (Additional Cost)

Getting answers quickly is so important when you are faced with a potentially serious health issue.

Legal and General’s Private Diagnostics service will give you access to some of the UK’s top specialist consultants and diagnostic test centres to investigate your symptoms if you are referred to cardiology, oncology or neurosurgery specialists.

This additional benefit does however come at an extra cost of £4.50 per month.

Fracture Cover (Additional Cost)

If you were to fracture a bone in your body, such as wrist, collar bone or skull, Fracture Cover would provide you with a cash lump sum which you can put towards recovery.

This additional benefit comes at an extra cost of £5.90 a month and it’s important to note that in order to make a successful claim the injury you sustain must be one that is specified in your policy.

How Does L&G Compare?

Child Cover Standard With Adult Critical Illness Insurance

Child Critical Illness Cover comes free with adult cover. With some insurers, it’s an optional add-on for an extra premium on top of adult Critical Illness Cover.

As a result, Legal & General Critical Illness Insurance may therefore have an advantage over such insurers if you have children or plan to start a family in the future.

Unique Child Cover Features

Legal & General’s child cover offers unique features most other insurers don’t offer. For example, the standard child cover that comes with adult Critical Illness Insurance includes:

• £5,000 as a hospitalisation benefit if your child has an accident which leaves them with physical injuries requiring at least 28 days in hospital
• £1,000 towards childcare with a registered childminder for a child under 5 years old in the 18 months after a parent the policy covers gets a critical diagnosis
• A £100 family accommodation benefit (up to £1,000) for each night a child spends in hospital in the 3 months after they develop a covered critical condition.

Accidental Hospitalisation Benefit With Critical Illness Cover

Legal & General’s accidental hospitalisation benefit with its Critical Illness Insurance is fairly unique in the market.

14 Day Survival Period

With Critical Illness Insurance, every insurer has a survival period. This is the length of time you must live after your diagnosis for the insurer to pay a Critical Illness Insurance claim.

With Legal & General, this survival period is 14 days. There are insurers which allow you to claim providing you survive 10 days.

Terminal Illness Cover Only On Policies Which Run 2 Years+

Legal & General Life Insurance includes Terminal Illness Cover, which pays out your benefit early if you become terminally ill, only on policies which run for at least 2 years.

It is common among many other insurers Terminal Illness Cover to cease in the final 12 months of a policy. However,  Legal & General appears to be the only insurer that stipulates it is only available on policies with a minimum duration.

Minimal Additional Benefits Offering

While Legal & General includes Nurse Support Services for free, which offers help and support in a variety of areas, these are fairly minimal compared to some other insurers.

For example, there are insurers which include access to remote GP services and physiotherapy with Life Insurance.

How Much Does Legal & General Life Insurance Cost?

Often your level of cover can be dictated by your budget so it is important to have an idea of how much your cover may cost. As an example we’ve calculated monthly premiums based on varying ages, with and without Critical Illness cover below.

To calculate these quotes we have assumed that the individual looking for cover wants £250,000 Life and Critical Illness cover:

• Needs a decreasing term
• Is in a low risk office based role
• Has no pre-existing conditions
• Is a non-smoker

Get Legal & General Life Insurance Quotes & Expert Advice

L&G are just one of a number of insurers who offer Life Insurance in the UK. If you would like to know more about the other top providers we have written a comprehensive guide reviewing the best UK life insurance providers.

Where we all have unique personal circumstances having an expert on your side to make sure you set-up your cover correctly can often make all the difference.

If you would like to speak to one of our team you can call us on 02084327333 or email help@drewberry.co.uk.

Alternatively if you are confident you know what you are looking for you can use our life insurance quote tool to compare the cost across the leading UK providers.

Why Speak to Us?

We started Drewberry™ because we were tired of being treated like a number.

We all deserve a first class service when it comes to issues as important as protecting our health and our finances. Below are just a few reasons why it makes sense to talk to us.

• There is no fee for our service
• We are an award winning 🏆 independent insurance broker who works with all the leading UK insurers
• You’ll speak to a dedicated expert from start to finish
• We are very proud of the 3311 and growing independent client reviews rating us at 4.92 / 5
• Claims support when you need it most.
• We are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. You can find us on the financial services register here 🧐

For help and fee-free Life Insurance advice, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. Pop us a call on 02084327333 or email help@drewberry.co.uk.