Life insurance company
The pitfalls of finding the right life insurance company.
If you want term assurance finding a life insurance company is quite simply a doddle. For whole of life cover, you can’t really just judge by the size of a company or it’s name- for the best service speak to an independent financial adviser!
If you’re looking for a life insurance company to provide you with term insurance, you’ve got no troubles ahead. The marketplace for term products has expanded dramatically in the past 5 years, and you’ll find no end of competition for your business. Independent financial advisers can make you a recommendation; you will find plenty of discount life brokers online, and even your local supermarket will cut you a competitive deal. Oddly enough, the back markers are the high street banks, who have been remarkably lazy. Go to a specialist life insurance company, not a bank.
If you want a whole of life policy (these are permanent investment products or “assurance”, not insurance; then not only are you looking at a bigger budget, but also a much more dangerous game. The fact is, many a life insurance company has taken a hammering (and passed that hammering onto their clients- you and me). Way back at the end of 2002, the independent advisers and analysts BestInvest (www.bestinvest.co.uk) reported that the worst performing life funds belonged to some of the biggest names (Friends Provident, Equitable Life, Sun Life etc…). Now actually, market watchers will know that companies sometimes get rescued- Sun Life funds are now performing better because they were amalgamated with Axa, for example. But it still goes to show that a big name doesn’t necessarily talk a big game. Indeed many financial advisers are actually no longer recommending life policies as reliable investments, preferring to look at old favourites like bonds. Either way, don’t plump for a life insurance company without examining the track record of its funds or without the sound advice of an entirely independent financial adviser.
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