We insure our cars, our houses and even our pets – it may now be time to think about insuring ourselves. Life is unpredictable and as much as we don’t like to think about ‘what might happen’, if you care about your loved ones, life insurance is something you need to take seriously.

When you’re young, life insurance is very low on your list of priorities. Planning for the future is buried under a sea of other concerns. But with age comes responsibility, and planning ahead means considering how your loved ones would cope if you were no longer able to provide for them.

This is particularly important if you are the major wage earner in your home. The financial impact of a death or serious illness could leave your family with financial hardships as well as personal loss to cope with. This is why life insurance is so important – both for your own and your loved ones’ peace of mind.

A life insurance policy can make life easier for your loved ones by paying out a lump sum in the event of your death. This can cover a range of expenses, from settling outstanding debts and paying off the mortgage to covering funeral expenses or other costs. At such an emotionally sensitive time, knowing that you’ve planned for your family’s future means that they don’t have the added burden of financial worries to cope with.

Although there are some providers who will issue a life insurance policy without asking you too many questions, these are usually reserved for
people over 50 and carry certain restrictions. For most people looking for health insurance, the provider will start by sending you a form asking you a series of questions. This will go into detail about your lifestyle, whether you have any underlying illnesses, whether you smoke or drink and a wide range of other questions. All of these are used to calculate your ‘risk’ factor and can make a difference to how much your policy costs, what level of cover you have or even if the insurer will cover you at all. Some companies will not accept people who smoke, for example, or who already have long-term health issues such as HIV or a history of cancer. Be prepared to answer some fairly detailed and personal questions, and as with any policy, if you feel uncomfortable about any aspect of the policy, talk to your financial advisor before proceeding further. A life insurance policy is a serious commitment, and one that shouldn’t be entered into without careful consideration.

Once you have decided on your policy and been accepted by the insurer (which may in some cases include a medical examination), you will then pay a monthly premium into the policy. If the worst happens, your named beneficiary will receive a lump sum after your death. Some life insurance policies also include a payment to cover your mortgage or rent, ensuring that your loved ones do not have to worry about losing their home at such an emotionally vulnerable time. It is also worth finding out if your life insurance also offers a ‘critical illness’ clause that could pay you a lump sum during the life of the policy if you are diagnosed with a predetermined illness.

Life insurance is not something that people like to talk or even think about, as it reminds us of our own mortality. But if you have loved ones, leaving them financially secure is a responsible decision that shows you care. For the sake of a few pounds a month, you can be certain that, should the worst happen, your family and loved ones are taken care of and that you can get on and enjoy your life, safe in the knowledge that their future is secure.

Life Insurance is a form of life risk management or life cover that helps guard against the risk of a contingent loss of individual’s life. So that you no longer have to worry about the event occurring. While you pay a fee, or premium for this, what you get in return is peace of mind. So what is the risk that you are transferring with life insurance? Well, quite simply, it is the financial risk of your own death. It should also be remembered that it is in certain circumstances possible to insure the life of another person, such as your husband or wife, or an important employee. The insurance company will then pay out to the named beneficiary once the event occurs, and this is usually a family member or business associate of the insured.

The thing that insurance companies will be looking for is insurable interest. It may come as a surprise but in the early days of aviation, there were some clever entrepreneurs who would hang around at airports and buy life insurance policies on the passengers. Since plane crashes were very common, a good proportion of the insured passengers died and the insurance companies were faced with the prospect of paying out vast sums to these men.

This is not the reason insurance was developed and the system was not designed to cope with this kind of speculation. Therefore the rule developed that you could only insure the life of someone you had a real interest in surviving. There is also the public policy issue that it would be tempting to some people to insure strangers and then make sure they died soon.

The insurance policy will have two important details defined right at the outset. The first is who is to be paid out under the policy. While this seems obvious, it is important to think carefully about it as, unlike in most insurance contracts, the purchaser of the policy is rarely the beneficiary under a life insurance policy.

The second is the amount to be paid out on to occurrence of the event. It must be remembered that this is also subject to the rule of insurable interest and therefore you cannot have a policy on your life for more than your life is reasonably financially worth. Since the premium is partially calculated on the amount of the payout, you will simply be paying for more insurance than you can receive. Therefore be honest with how much you earn and how much support your providing to your family so that the premium will be accurately assessed.