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Life-insurance - do you have it sorted or is it on the to-do list? Share your thoughts and ask Aviva's expert your questions - £150 high street voucher to be won - ANSWERS BACK

179 replies

AnnMumsnet · 04/11/2013 14:33

We've been asked by the team at Aviva to find out if life insurance is ticked off your list of things to do, lurking at the bottom, or is something you keep meaning to get around to but never quite manage it? If you sorted it, why? If you're yet to do so, why not?

Aviva says "As parents we instinctively do everything we can to protect our children. We cover them in sun tan lotion, make them brush their teeth and take steps to keep them safe on the move. Yet, despite our best intentions, when it comes to financial matters, such as sorting out life insurance, other things often take priority. If the unthinkable happened, life insurance can help protect what matters most to your loved ones. That's why we want to make it easier for you to find out answers to your pressing questions."

If you have a question about life-insurance post your questions on the thread and we'll choose some for *Aviva's expert, Louise (see image), to answer. Her responses will be posted on this thread by 18 November.

About Louise: "Louise has worked for Aviva for 24 years and, after gaining a wealth of experience across the insurance business, is now Distribution Director. She is also responsible for the marketing and communication strategy for protection. Louise is extremely passionate about families protecting themselves financially and is a dynamic spokesperson in the national press on the subject.

Aviva's free new parent life cover initiative, which has helped more families become financially protected, is Louises brain-child. She was also instrumental in developing an emotionally engaging approach for Avivas life insurance TV advertising campaign, which created considerable interest, debate and praise.

Louise's contribution to raising awareness levels of protection and challenging customer behaviours has been recognised through a number of key industry accolades. Louise is married with 5-year-old twins and lives in Yorkshire."

So please share your thoughts below - have a look at their info on their special pages on Mumsnet - everyone who adds a comment or a question below will be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £150 high street voucher.

thanks and good luck

PS Please note your comments, anon of course, may be used by Aviva on MN and possibly elsewhere.

Life-insurance - do you have it sorted or is it on the to-do list? Share your thoughts and ask Aviva's expert your questions - £150 high street voucher to be won - ANSWERS BACK
OP posts:
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CrewElla · 04/11/2013 16:08

I have life insurance through my work, I believe that it's 2 times my salary, but that's it (I took advantage of the free £10000 from Aviva for baby's first year through Mumsnet page) but I'm not sure how much is enough. Is there a standard calculation based on salary, number of children you have, etc?

TBH it's not something that I really like to think about too much.

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CMOTDibbler · 04/11/2013 16:16

I have death in service benefit through work, as does dh, as well as independant life cover. We also have critical illness cover as to us thats almost as important, having seen the hardship caused when someone becomes too ill to work, but not yet with a terminal diagnosis.

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10thingsihateaboutpoo · 04/11/2013 20:33

We both have 3x salary cover at work and took out joint life policies after each DC was born so we're well covered in that respect.

I do think we ought to have some sort of critical illness policy but there seem to be so many options and i'm not sure of the ins and outs etc it's a bit daunting. I worry we'd end up paying a lot for the wrong thing.

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stephgr · 04/11/2013 20:57

I do have life insurance which I took out ages ago and I can't recall the details. It's one of "those things" I had to get but which I forget all about until a claim needs to be made. Hopefully no claim will be needed!

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hermioneweasley · 04/11/2013 20:59

We both have life insurance. If you are not on the breadline, I think it's irresponsible not to.

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Theimpossiblegirl · 04/11/2013 21:59

Dh is really well covered through work but I'm not.

Something for my to-do list then. I do keep meaning to look into it as although I don't earn much, if anything happened to me DH would struggle to replace the childcare and housework element and still work the hours he does, so the financial impact would be more than the loss of my salary.

Not nice to think about really, but must sort it.

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NotAFeminist · 05/11/2013 10:06

Neither me or my husband have it... We are young - he's 26 and I'm 21 -and we have a 1 year old and although I would like to have a life insurance policy, I really don't know how to go about it... I find it all kinds of confusing and don't know where to get unbiased, honest advice from concerning this matter. Issues that confuse me like, if you die before a certain time, not all of what's been saved is paid out, or something? I don't know. Like I said... confusing!!! But especially now we have a child, I see the importance of being prepared in case anything happens but I wouldn't know where to start! Any help would be greatly appreciated! :D

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maxmissie · 05/11/2013 12:23

Both me and have life insurance plus death in service benefit and pensions so if we die we are pretty well covered, provided the insurance company doesn't come up with some reason (based on a visit to the doctor 10 years ago for something that wasn't a problem then but could now be a symptom of the reason for our death) to not pay out!

We don't have any critical illness cover or unemp/sickness cover. We decided not to go for unemp/sickness cover because we figured it would only last for 12 months anyway and we have enough savings to cover ourselves for this time period, plus we have sick pay from work and would get OKish redundancy payments.

However whilst part of me thinks critical illness cover would be sensible, my problem with it is that there are so many options and so many exclusions and it is so expensive, that we would be paying out a lot of money each week, which we may never need if we are never seriously ill and which we would never get back OR again the insurance company wouldn't pay out for some obscure reason.

Whilst things like buildings/contents/car insurance relate to day to day living, with critical illness cover it is a payment for something that isn't part of day to day life and so therefore I think it feels less essential although I accept that it isn't if you become ill.

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WowOoo · 05/11/2013 12:44

We have life insurance and got it when we bought a house together many years ago. The next step was to have children, so it seemed sensible.

I also think that a lot of the small print and literature is very confusing and deliberately so.
I wish insurance companies would write in plain English.

Do you know if it's possible to change your life insurance provider? I shop around for all other types of insurance. Can I do the same for life insurance? I suppose I will have 'wasted' years of no claims..?

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Tee2072 · 05/11/2013 12:51

My husband and I both have it, through Aviva in fact. One if the first things we did, along with wills, when I became pregnant.

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chicaguapa · 05/11/2013 13:10

We have life assurance. We worked out how much we'd each need to cover the day-to-day costs plus paying off the mortgage if the other person died and insured ourselves for that. We also have DIS cover through our work pension schemes but we see this as a bonus as we could leave our jobs and/ or the pension scheme at any time and forget to increase the life assurance. So we haven't included that in our calculations.

We haven't got any critical illness cover. I think we had income protection once when DH was a high-earner and I wasn't working, but we don't have that anymore. We cut all our extras right back when he left to retrain as a teacher.

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MinesAPintOfTea · 05/11/2013 14:02

We organised it when we took our mortgage out. Will pay off the mortgage on either of our deaths, plus death in service benefits. I have now just remembered we need to do wills though.

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supermariossister · 05/11/2013 14:32

It's on the to do list. We are still recovering from a lot of financial troubles but nearly there . I want to ask how you get the best advice without being talked into taking anything out

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msmoss · 05/11/2013 14:42

We have it both for the mortgage and also to cover a loss in DH's income as he's self employed.

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OrganixAddict · 05/11/2013 16:33

We have it to cover the mortgage if we die or get critical illness. Separate policy will provide an income in the event of one of our deaths (but that only pays out until youngest dc turns 21).
DH has death in service benefit but if he were to get terminal illness, it is possible he would have to leave job before dying so we decided not to include that.
What I wish I'd been made more aware of was that it is worth over insuring when young as premiums lower rather than trying to increase cover when older. DH & I will both be 40+ at next move and need to cover an extra 100k of mortgage I expect which could be very expensive!

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sleeplessbunny · 05/11/2013 20:32

We both have 4x salary death in service benefits from our employers, plus a joint life/critical illness policy we took out when we bought our first house to cover the mortgage. We have since moved though so it now covers about 60% of our current mortgage, but rates have gone up so much (or is it because we got older?) we decided not to extend it. I occasionally have a nagging thought to do something about it but I seem to always manage to shake it off.

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Pipparivers · 05/11/2013 20:38

I have cover but not enough to cover the mortgage. my house would have to be sold but that wouldn't put any unnecessary pressure on my beneficiaries.

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majjsu · 05/11/2013 21:19

My husband has death in service through work. As I am now a stay at home, I have nothing. Not sure if its worth getting as when I return to work, many employers offer this?

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sillymillyb · 05/11/2013 21:26

I got life insurance when my baby was about 3 weeks old. I am on my own with him, and realised that if anything were to happen to me he would have nothing - it really terrified me!

I went to a friend who was a broker, and ended up with a policy that pays out a lump sum and a monthly amount in the event of my death.

I think I pay about £12 a month, and its well worth it for the peace of mind it gives me.

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telsa · 05/11/2013 21:40

I think I have some death in service benefit. Not sure. head in sand. I have a flat that the children can sell if they need money. What use is money anyway though?

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sharond101 · 05/11/2013 22:00

DH has life insurance but noone will insure me due to my having ill health in the past, it's shocking!

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pussinwellyboots · 06/11/2013 10:27

we have life insurance for the house in that the mortgage would be paid off in full, and also through work (both public sector employees) we would both get 3x salary plus other pension benefits- we feel that this would be enough to continue an ok quality of life if the worst happened considering that there would be no mortgage to pay.

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manfalou · 06/11/2013 10:55

OH did have life insurance with his work until he went self employed... now none of us have neither. Something we talk about quite often and do need to sort out.

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Lent1l · 06/11/2013 11:27

I am very lucky in that my work automatically provides 3x my salary for Death in Service and then through our "Choices" programme we are allowed to sacrifce salary once a year to buy more holidays, critical illness cover, health insurance etc. And one offer is that each year you are allowed to top up the Life Cover by 1x your salary. You can do this until you reach a maximum of 10x your salary, as I've been doing this every year for a few years now think I'm at 7 at the moment. This would certainly pay off the mortgage and give a good lump sum for my husband to use. We have discussed that as my husband is a house husband currently we don't have much in place for him and should probably sort something so that I could work less if something happened to him.

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Spirael · 06/11/2013 12:27

My DH and I don't have a specific Life Insurance policy, but we're both well covered by our works and our pensions so that if either of us die or are incapacitated the money paid out will cover the remainder of the mortgage and probably a bit more.

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