Royal London Life Insurance [REVIEW]

Who Are Royal London?

Royal London began as a friendly society in 1861, later changing to a mutual society in 1908. Today, Royal London is the UK’s largest mutual life, pensions and investment company.

Previously, several brands previously operated under the Royal London umbrella, including Bright Grey and its sister brand Scottish Provident. However, Royal London unified them beneath the single Royal London brand in 2014.

The Bright Grey and Scottish Provident brands are therefore now defunct and entirely owned and operated as a single Royal London Life Insurance brand.

Royal London Life Insurance

Policy Overview

• Unlimited maximum Life Insurance benefit for level and decreasing cover, so you can pick a sum of your choosing.
• Access a range of free additional benefits via Helping Hand, such as complementary therapies to manage symptoms / help with recovery after an illness.
• Opt for Critical Illness Cover for an extra premium, which pays your full benefit if you develop one of 44 critical conditions.
• Option for dual cover with Royal London Joint Life Insurance so each partner gets a separate policy packaged into a single menu plan. The surviving partner therefore retains cover after the first partner dies.

Documentation

What Does Royal London Life Insurance Cover?

Key Benefits With Royal London Life Insurance

Guaranteed Insurability

Royal London lets you increase your benefit without providing further medical evidence if you:

• Get married / enter into a civil partnership
• Get divorced / dissolve your civil partnership
• Increase your mortgage
• Have / adopt a child
• Get an increase in salary.

To make use of this, you must inform Royal London within 6 months of the event and be under 55. If it’s a joint plan, both individuals must be under 55 at the time of the request for an increased benefit. Royal London must also have initially offered you Life Insurance on standard terms.

The maximum increase you can request is the lower of:

• 50% of your original benefit
• £200,000 (for cover payable as a lump sum)
• £10,000 per year for cover payable as regular benefits (for example, Family Income Benefit).

Separation Benefit Available

Royal London Life Insurance lets you separate Joint Life Insurance or Joint Life and Critical Illness Insurance you’ve taken out to cover a mortgage into two separate plans.

To use this option, you either have to rearrange your joint mortgage to be in the name of one partner or one partner must take out a new mortgage on a new home.

Indexed or Fixed Increasing Cover Available

Choose increasing Life Insurance to ensure that inflation never erodes the purchasing power of your benefit over time.

You have the option for either:

• Indexed cover
  Your payout rises each year in line with Retail Prices Index inflation (capped at a maximum annual increase of 10%)
• Fixed increasing cover
  Your payout rises each year by a percentage you choose between 2% and 5%.

In both cases, your premiums will rise by the percentage increase in your benefit multiplied by 1.2.

With increasing Life insurance, your maximum benefit cannot exceed £5 million. When you add Critical Illness Cover to increasing Life Insurance, your benefit cannot exceed £1.2 million.

Excellent Paid Child Critical Illness Cover

While Royal London doesn’t include children’s Critical Illness Cover free with adult cover, if you pay extra to add it you get multiple benefits most other insurers don’t include.

For example, few other providers in the market pay out for pregnancy complications or Total Permanent Disability for children. Royal London pays out for both.

Additional Benefits With Royal London Life Insurance

Helping Hand

Helping Hand offers access to nurse support services from RedArc. You can call a telephone helpline and speak to a dedicated nurse, who’ll create a personal support plan for your situation.

Helping Hand can offer ongoing support and also arrange access to specialist services. For example, this includes counselling for mental health issues or bereavement or complementary therapies to assist with recovery.

The Help at Hand support services are a great additional benefit Royal London include for free as part of their life insurance policies.

Accessing such a support service can be invaluable during such difficult times.

Michael Barrow
Independent Protection Expert

You can also access help with certain legal matters, for example around probate and inheritance tax, as well as careers coaching.

Most importantly, Helping Hand offers access to free rehabilitation services after a critical illness.

It provides dedicated cardiac and oncology nurses to help you after a heart attack of cancer diagnosis. This might include second medical opinions, arranging complementary therapies or help re-evaluating your lifestyle to aid recovery.

If you’ve suffered a stroke, the team can even put you in touch with speech and language therapists to improve your communication levels.

Funeral Benefit

Royal London will advance up to £10,000 of your Life Insurance benefit to a funeral director to cover your funeral costs if probate delays your payout.

Key Comparison Points

Total Permanent Disability Cover as Standard

Royal London includes Total Permanent Disability Cover as standard with its Critical Illness Insurance. This pays out if you become so completely and totally disabled through illness or injury that you can’t ever work again.

For many insurers, this is an optional extra for an additional premium.

Royal London Life Insurance Offers Dual Life Cover

With Royal London, you have the option to take out dual Life Insurance if you’re a couple needing joint cover. This covers both of you with two separate policies under a single menu plan and will therefore pay out twice if you both pass away during the policy term.

On the other hand, most Life Insurance providers only offer Joint Life Insurance. This pays out on the first partner’s death and then ceases, leaving the surviving partner without cover.

Free Critical Illness Rehabilitation With Helping Hand

While many Life and Critical Illness Insurance providers offer medical services as part of their additional benefits offering, few tailor them specifically to critical illnesses.

Helping Hand includes access to specialist cardiac, oncology and stroke nurses who to offer free rehabilitation services if you get cancer or have a heart attack or stroke. These represent the most common Critical Illness Insurance claims.

Advance Surgery Benefit

If you choose Critical Illness Insurance, Royal London pays out as soon as you’re on the NHS waiting list for one of the 12 surgeries it covers. You don’t have to wait until you’ve had the procedure to claim.

That means you therefore get access to your payout faster, which can be useful if you cannot work while awaiting your operation.

Child Critical Illness Cover Not Free With Adult Cover

Children’s Critical Illness Cover is an optional add-on for an extra premium. It’s not included free as standard with adult cover.

While this does mean you don’t pay for a service you won’t use if you don’t have children, many other providers offer it free. If you have children or plan to start a family, this is worth noting.

Broad Optional Child Critical Illness Coverage

However, while Children’s Critical Illness Insurance isn’t free with adult cover, when you pay to add it Royal London offers one of the most comprehensive child benefits available.

For example, it pays out if your child suffers a terminal illness. It also pays out if your child meets the Total Permanent Disability definition, which most other insurers exclude from children’s cover.

Lastly, Royal London extends the adult pregnancy cover in the policy to your children up until their 21st birthday (23rd birthday if they’re in full-time education). Few other providers do so.

Compare Life Insurance Quotes & Get Expert Advice

As you can see, when you compare Life Insurance providers and policies there are many points to consider. With so many factors and lots of different terminology at play, it can be tricky to do an accurate like-for-like comparison between providers.

We have a team of expert regulated advisers that are on hand to help you find the best life insurance for your circumstances.

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 3083 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.