Affordable Life Assurance

There are plenty of options among whole-of-life policies for the price-sensitive consumer.

Whole of life policies come in all shapes and sizes, but there are types of policy designed to give you affordable life assurance without overly compromising on cover. Non-profit policies are basic and predictable, guaranteed low-cost policies skim the cover to a minimum but again offer a predictable return, and the newer breed of unitised policies offer more options for reducing costs.

There is such a thing as affordable life assurance. Whole of Life assurance is more expensive than term assurance because you’re bound to die eventually, and therefore the policy is bound to pay out. But within that framework, you can significantly reduce premiums by reducing cover. It’s up to you to ensure that you don’t leave yourself under-insured, but here are a few examples. Please remember: these are all cost-cutting policies resulting in a more affordable life assurance policy, but price shouldn’t necessarily be your first consideration.

For starters consider a non-profit policy. With these you don’t get any fancy bonuses, and it pays a specific fixed sum upon your death. You’ll get cheaper premiums because the life office gets predictability and an economical customer.

There is also a whole raft of low-cost whole-life policies. These offer a with-profits deal but also with a set guaranteed level of cover: you’ll receive the greater of the two. So if you die in the early years of policy, where the with-profits fund is unlikely to have accumulated bonuses enough to reach the threshold, your estate will still receive the guaranteed amount. These are remarkably affordable life assurance policies, but the level of benefit, whilst under guarantee, will be lower than with a standard with-profits policy