Quote life insurance
Whole of life policies depend on market movement, and your buying decision should in part be based on fund management track records.
If you’re hunting a quote life insurance needs some explanation- the rate of return and nature of contract with whole of life polices has changed dramatically in recent years to hold back the effects of a negative stockmarket. Ask your financial adviser how his recommended funds have performed!
If you’re looking for a whole-of-life quote life insurance can be utterly complicated. A bit of history is called for!
Traditionally, whole-of-life was usually delivered through an endowment policy. With endowments, a cash sum is paid out at the end of the policy term (on maturity or death), part of which is due to a component called a “bonus”, added annually. Bonuses can be lumps of cash added to your contribution, or in some cases were even reversionary- being “counted” from the start of your savings pot. Then suddenly, the stockmarket didn’t look so good. Bonuses became fewer and less generous. This is why you hear of endowment mortgage holders not being able to pay off their homes. Similarly holders of life policies weren’t getting as high a payout as they expected.
These days, life offices are more likely to sell you a unitised policy, which is tied quite strictly to the performance of the life office’s own funds. This still leaves you open to the vagaries of stockmarket performance. What this means is that when you’re looking for a quote life insurance is not only about the cost in monthly premiums. You need to ask what you’re going to get for your money. And that means it’s time to become a stockmarket analyst- the big question to ask your adviser is: how well managed is each life office’s funds? And how well have they performed in the last ten, even twenty years? Only by looking at these figures can you really assess which policy is going to be of any use- or whether sticking fivers under the bed is actually a better bet.
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