buffpaff

Hi All,
My wife and I are about to shop around for a life insurance. We are both healthy non (and never) smokers...
so hoping premiums won't be too high.
I'm mainly curious about 2 things: term length, and amount.

I plan on investigating rates on www.insurancehero.org.uk/types/life-insurance-over-40.html
which was recommended on another forum and also with a local broker.
A little more of our financial picture: we have $80k left on home loan and $25k on student loans.
Income: Me $98k and my wife $25k.


We have about $100k in retirement savings.

I hope that's enough of a picture to help answer my main questions...if there is more to think about please advise. My main questions are:

1. term length: 20 year? 30 year?
2. amount: My first thought is $1MM for me and $500k for her

Any tips?

Thanks!!

not2old

insurance is a personal thing, involves many factors from age, kids, health, lifestyle & the amount of debt you have & whether your needs are to cover you till the debt has gone or if you want to leave a legacy.

Not knowing your age or health, the easiest basic answer I can give you based on my own personal life insurance which I terminated when I retired from working life (long after the kids had left home), is have enough life insurance till the debt (mortgage & student loans) are zero & the kids have left home.

The simplest cheapest policy to go with is term life - $1MM for you & $500k for the OH (even if its $500k each) which is what we went with. Its affordable for term 20yrs. Depending on your age & the premiums (calculator required) I don't think 30 years is necessary IMO

Hopefully by then you will have enough asets for the survivor till they get back on their feet in a year or two without worrying about having to pay a mortgage & some cash for a few years.

In the following, see for comparison from a UK provider

http://moneyworld.com/Life-Insurance...comparison.htm

.

Editha

My first question is: If your money is in dollars, why are you looking on a UK site for insurance cover?

My second question is, if your 'local' broker recommends a UK site for financial advice, is he local to you or to the UK?

buffpaff

Sorry guys for the late response ...
The $ ist just an old habit of receiving my paycheck in $ . I meant £ offcourse

@not2old thank you - the second link is very useful, cheers

Tr1boy

I normally get life cover as part of my package but after taking redundancy last year and now being a contractor I wanted something to fill the gap. I tried the 'instant cover' stuff you see on tv but they were quite expensive. In the end I went with LV. Joint cover/death for me and Mrs TB. Lots of medical hoops to jump through, pretty painless though. Went for 5 year fixed cover, fixed rate. It worked out at half the price of the tv 'specials'. Had it about a year, by the end of the 5yrs we'll either be settled here or back in Oz, so it suits a need for now.

mayhemuk

Why do you need a £1m of cover?
Check you death in service benefits first.
Then what would be needed to pay off debt then add 'family protection' which is putting money in the bank to provide for loved ones.
If you want to put 'a lot' of cover in place for some reason look at family income benefit.
That pays out £xx per year for the duration of the policy.
So £50K per year for 20 years gives £1m cover spread out for a fraction of the cost.