Life Insurance, any recommendations and who to avoid?

BDEE said:
One can simply cancel it if it is no longer required. No money is repaid and cover ceases.
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Well yes, that is a standard contract. But with this deal you lose all of the cover, that is why it is cancelled only when absolutely necessary.

I think you missed the perspective I took so I'll repeat it again, although re-reading it I guess it could be seen as vague:

"when making a decision to pay into something you're locked in to for life, which you are as the only way to literally cash out is to also do so figuratively, it's best not to risk advice from someone who can get £6-7k commission per contract."


If you are making monthly payments for something that only pays off upon criteria x happening then the assumption is you expect to pay them the entirety of the time you are waiting for criteria x to come along. Therefore you're trapped until death or you can no longer afford the cover.
 
NVP said:
All I'm trying to advise is when making a decision to pay into something you're locked in to for life, which you are as the only way to literally cash out is to also do so figuratively, it's best not to risk advice from someone who can get £6-7k commission per contract.
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I don't want to be funny mate because I think you're a good poster and I agree with you that there are bad actors out there. But if your adviser is willing to take a one off £6k for an insurance product, they're probably not very good imho.

There's quite a lot that goes into understanding insurance underwriting and very often a decent adviser can get you a better rate than you'd get by going direct and would hopefully do it as an 'add on' service without charging much/anything for it. :)
 
Mushy Peas said:
I don't want to be funny mate because I think you're a good poster and I agree with you that there are bad actors out there. But if your adviser is willing to take a one off £6k for an insurance product, they're probably not very good imho.

There's quite a lot that goes into understanding insurance underwriting and very often a decent adviser can get you a better rate than you'd get by going direct and would hopefully do it as an 'add on' service without charging much/anything for it. :)
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Probably so, I seem to encounter more shysters in my life than most, or perhaps I'm too suspicious.

The way I see it is if there is incentive for dishonesty yet the actual decision is around very simple, easily understandable products - why bother with any potential exploitation?


Edit: Not to dismiss your point, I accept good advisors would benefit in terms of potential rates (perhaps, depending on their connections, right?) but with something like Life Insurance, their potential for greed outweighs their need to me
 
NVP said:
Probably so, I seem to encounter more shysters in my life than most, or perhaps I'm too suspicious.

The way I see it is if there is incentive for dishonesty yet the actual decision is around very simple, easily understandable products - why bother with any potential exploitation?


Edit: Not to dismiss your point, I accept good advisors would benefit in terms of potential rates (perhaps, depending on their connections, right?) but with something like Life Insurance, their potential for greed outweighs their need to me
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It's a fair frame of mind to adopt and I am much the same being wary of people being swayed by ulterior motives. It's an instinct that can serve us well but can also work against us. :)
 
Yes, very true - all we have is our head and our gut, and right now both mine are in sync for some KFC drive-thru :)
 
I've never bothered with LA, personally. I take the minimal insurances required by law only, mostly, or to protect my home should it burn down or something (buildings insurance).
I'd imagine covering inheritance tax could get quite expensive to cover, especially if they don't review it fairly regularly. Just ensure on death bed you have enough cash under it to cover the inheritance tax? :D
Direct line i'd probably consider if it were me. Use them for car insurance and although not had to claim, find them easy to deal with.
 
Gibbo said:
They did pay out but what annoyed me most is they would request forms filled in and I'd have it done within 24hrs but then they could take like two weeks or claim they never got the emailed forms back, then another service advisor would. Biggest problem for me was always speaking to a different person, they never seem to put a single individual in charge and so every time was nearly speaking to someone different, even trying to request to speak to same person would normally be met with they are on vacation now or not available so just seemed a very inefficient process that took far more time than I would like and some people I spoke to were helpful and other people there were just not interested in helping at all. I was dealing with it on behalf my mum so I could handle it and knew how to handle them but if it was my mother doing it would have driven her insane to point of giving up, maybe that is what they hope for to not have to pay out.
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I'd does sound like an aim to make it impossible to get a payout. As morbid as it it, luckily I wouldn't be the one claiming on my own life insurance.

Would be interested to hear your feedback of who you choose though.
 
I'm not too close to what's happening in the UK but I do know that here in NZ there are some fairly vocal questions being asked about the benefit of having life insurance at all. Insurance as an industry is being looked at here and in Aus generally and life insurance specifically. @Gibbo - might be worth talking with people other than those invested in your decision (I mean that with respect as I can see at least one poster - who always has very good financial advice - has a differing view).
 
Just to give balance. I've had to make a claim through L&G when my dad died. I am not exaggerating when I say I made a single 10 minute phone call, sent a copy of the death certificate, and start to finish we had the money in just under a fortnight. It couldn't have been easier. Didn't have to chase once.

I'm personally insured with Zurich - I've got 3 policies, 2 in our company and one personal policy - and my other half is with Aviva. Both have seemed decent.

For my Zurich policies I needed a medical for the ones that provided critical illness cover.
 
I've taken a far less thorough approach to this.

My pension provider is Aviva so just went on their site and they gave me what I thought was a fairly reasonable quote of ~£30 a month for £500k of insurance on a 25 year joint policy with my wife.

If the Aviva quote hadn't have been reasonable, I'd have gone on a comparison site and gone with the most reasonable quote from a well known provider.

Job done? :/
 
MadMan-JaMeS said:
I have just taken a policy out with L&G.

Feel like i might cancel it and find another provider, this thread don't fill me with confidence lol
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I am an IFA so deal with quite a lot of insurance companies. Personal experience is that L&G are typically very good with paying out quickly etc.. but as with any large companies some people may have bad experiences with them.
 
dirtychinchilla said:
God, man. Have you heard of sentences and full stops?!
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Setting aside the needless blasphemy shouldn't you have an exclamation mark after man? Perhaps also a "not" between you and heard since your inference is clearly that he hasn't?

Anyway his sentence wasn't that bad, I've seen far, far worse. Grammar police maybe take a chill pill? After all solecistic lives matter too!
 
I did a brief stint as an independent financial advisor, and sold a lot of Legal and General policies in my time. I'm actually surprised by your negative experiences with them, it was not feedback that I ever heard nor does it mirror my own experience with them.

In regards to life insurance, speak to a financial advisor as obviously its very difficult to give advice on the forum without knowing your personal circumstances.

I've been out the game a while, but a few things to consider:
* It used to be possible to place your insurance policy in trust, essentially ring fenced so that the payout would be exempt from IPT.
* If you do end up getting married, the transfer of your property to your spouse would be exempt from IPT so the IPT liability would only be assessed on the value of your other assets.
* I don't know your employment circumstances (other than the obvious!) but if there is some sort of company pension involved then check that for Death In Service benefit, although its not as all encompassing as proper life insurance (ie it doesnt pay out if your long term sick and have to leave employment) if something sudden did happen then Death in Service would pay out. This is usually displayed in the form of x times salary. I know mine is 8x salary, so if I go suddenly the Mrs is laughing.

Obviously not my bag anymore, and my advice isn't going to be as solid as what you'd get from a decent IFA, but if you need to bounce anything off me feel free to drop me a line.
 
yogibear88 said:
I am an IFA so deal with quite a lot of insurance companies. Personal experience is that L&G are typically very good with paying out quickly etc.. but as with any large companies some people may have bad experiences with them.
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Thanks

To be honest its just a fixed term thing, so if i die before i'm 70 i'd leave 400k. only pay like £20 a month which is nothing in the grand scheme of things
 
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