Life and Health Insurance

updated: January 22, 2010

We can advise on a wide range of protection policies which include the following types of situations:

Miss A is concerned as to how she would continue to cover her mortgage repayments and other outgoings in the event of a serious illness such as cancer, or a long term disability. We can provide quotations for the main types of health insurances and explain the differences between them and which type(s) we consider more suitable for her situation.

Mr B is married with two young children and realises that in the event of his early death, his wife would struggle to make ends meet. We can set up a monthly income for her in this eventuality until the children are through university for a low monthly premium.

Mr and Mrs C have a nice home in Surrey, a flat in Cardiff Bay and a large number of investments. They have begun to realise that there will be a large inheritance tax bill for their children to face once they have both died and that the situation will get worse, not better. They feel they are too young to start passing on assets to their children. We can set up a whole of life policy on their joint lives to pay out when these second of them dies. This will keep the premiums manageable but will enable their children to pay the inheritance tax bill if the unthinkable were to happeny.

Mrs D and her husband enjoy two or three overseas holiday trips a year now that their mortgage is repaid but the cost of the holiday insurance each time is rather annoying as it seems such a waste. We can arrange an annual travel cover policy for them at a much lower premium than they are currently paying in total.

Mr E is the managing director of a small production company with 6 employees. One of his fellow directors brings in most of the business through his personal contacts and there would be serious implications for the young company if he were to die during the next few years. We can arrange a key person insurance policy to protect the company in the event of his early death.

Miss F is a director of a large charity and wishes to set up some form of life assurance cover for all permanent employees paid for by the charity. A competitive cost will be a big issue for her. We can investigate the most competitive group life arrangement for their employees and negotiate attractive terms .

Mr G purchased a large amount of life assurance cover about four years ago. He did this directly with a household name company and is a bit concerned that he might now be paying too much. We can obtain comparative quotations from a wide range of insurers and are hopefull that we can either save him money or provide an increased level of cover for the same premiums.

Not long dead!

We expect that it is an apocryphal story, but we remember hearing about the life assurance salesman who, confronted with a man who said that a certain amount of life insurance cover was adequate, remarked, "I see that you do not expect to be dead very long!"

It takes very little time to work out how much life cover you should have and it is usually inexpensive at the younger ages anyway, to make up any shortfall.

For example a 30 year old family man whose youngest child is 5, needs to provide a replacement for around 16 years of income in the event of his early death. If he earns £35,000 a year he needs around £560,000 of cover. Any mortgage protection should be in excess of this amount. Of course, that sum could be invested to provide a higher level of income but then we have made no assumption about likely increases in his salary in the future. The fact is that life cover is relatively inexpensive, so it is one thing worth over stocking up on just in case its needed.