To hate the comment about "why dont you have life insurance"?

[partinor]

Yes if a partner dies when the family rely on their income, there will be a major impact on the finances of the household. And yes, life insurance would solve at least that impact.
BUT not everyone can get life insurance that covers everything. A LOT of people are born as children with illnesses that can have an impact on life expectancy, and so these will often not be covered by life insurance. With some conditions, it may be that you can not get any life insurance. Or the costs may be too high.
And when I was young and took out life insurance policies routinely excluded causes of death such as suicide or risky behaviour.
But easier to just blame the individuals.

For reference roughly 600,000 people die in the UK each year out of a population of over 65m. The male/female split is roughly 50/50. However of the 300,000 women less than 6% are under the age of 50. For men it is just over 9%. Not all of the people who die will have dependents or unknown risk factors. The chances of both parents dying and leaving dependents is very small.

Haven't RTFT but I can't get life insurance neither can my DP. If we fill it in honestly we get rejected. We've tried several brokers as well as legal and general. We've tried specialist mental health brokers and even they reject us. Not sure what else we can do. It's fucking terrifying that one of us could die and the other would be up shit creek but what else are we meant to do?

Similar to Dungeondragon15 my employer also has very good sick leave benefits. I also made the decision not to take out separate life insurance. Mortgage Protection insurance is mandatory here, can't get a mortgage without it, but I've paid off my mortgage so no longer needed.

I am a single parent to 2 young DC but I think I have enough backup in place for them if I'm not around. A decent amount of savings and good employer benefits.

Employer has Group Accident Scheme 5 times salary, Group Life Assurance Scheme 4 times salary.

Also my employer pension pays out Death in Service benefit: 12 times basic salary plus the value of the fund - that's a lot!!

@Dungeondragon15 what happens after 1 year? Most employers would not continue to employ you if you were off sick for a year then couldn't return to work.

I would get early retirement due to ill health. This can be taken as a lump sum if are expected to live less than a year.

my DHs life insurance paid out 150k. He was only paying into it for 5 years when he died. Putting the same amount into a savings account would have given me 2k.

You're wasting your time. Some people have convinced themselves it's all a big con, and no amount of actual facts will alter their opinion. This is because they are idiots.

Life insurance, especially if you have dependents, is not a con. That's for sure.

Some types of insurance, like endowments and PPI, are not a good deal for the consumer. I was never tempted to buy them, because they were so expensive and not a sure thing. This is even before the scandals broke.

Life insurance like most insurance is a gamble, Most people will pay premiums and get nothing, some people will get a pay out. That is how insurance companies make a profit.

Craft1905, I disagree that I am higher risk. I can't accept that. There are so many factors, nearly all of which I don't match.

Slightly off topic but I keep getting calls from my insurer encouraging me to increase my cover up to age 80 (currently 67) so I can leave something for my family. Given that I have a property, generous survivors pension and my youngest child will be 30 when I'm 67, I really don't see the need. They become terribly rude when I decline their kind offer!!

Life insurance like most insurance is a gamble

Of course it's a gamble.

You either pay and never claim and get to an old age when you don't need it (don't we all want to live to a good age rather than dying early)

Or you don't pay and risk dying early and leaving your loved ones in financial shit whilst grieving. Or even worse you are the one left grieving and in financial shit.

As with all insurance you pick which 'gamble' you take. I am the former on most insurances as I would rather 'lose' premiums but still be ok then the other way round because shitty things do happen to people.

Jeez Louise, it takes some chutzpah to read this thread and then still say that very few people get refused life insurance, or only for childhood problems. They DO get refused, by multiple companies, every day. I have life insurance, I value life insurance, but my dh was uninsurable and clearly not in a small group of people that applies to. It's so easy to think as a pp said that other people don't have life insurance because they're feckless in some way. A large group of people don't have it because they don't need it, a significant group can't get it, another group really, really can't afford it. And, yes, some people who definitely need it don't think about it, and that is pretty stupid.

I'll repeat that it's well worth looking into a pension as a way of saving for your dependents if you can't get life insurance.

Craft1905, I disagree that I am higher risk. I can't accept that. There are so many factors, nearly all of which I don't match.

Fair enough. Obviously the entire life insurance industry has got it all wrong, and all those actuaries who studied advanced statistical modelling and probability, after graduating for Oxford with a first in maths, know far less that some random woman on the internet.That would explain it.

Jeez Louise, it takes some chutzpah to read this thread and then still say that very few people get refused life insurance, or only for childhood problems. They DO get refused, by multiple companies, every day.

And that is a very small minority of people. Louise is right. If i think of all the people I know who need life insurance, people with mortgages and dependent children, I can maybe think of 1 person who might be refused life insurance. And even he would probably get it, although at a much higher cost.

Bloodydisgrace, that's just silly. I have income protection insurance, which costs me 5x what my life insurance costs. I'm lucky to be able to afford it, but for my personal circumstances I needed it and still do. If I paid the expensive premiums into a savings account, I would save £12K over the remainder of my working life. If I get knocked off my bike and have a reasonably minor head injury (I'm a health professional and work with people who have this kind of accident every day, plus I commute by bike, plus I was previously the breadwinner and am now a single parent), I could very well be in pretty good shape after a year or so of rehab (for which I'd only be paid for six months), but given the nature of my work it is highly likely I would still be unable to do my specific job, or any other that pays even a third of what I currently earn. If I did that in five years' time, and had the full amount of insurance awarded, I would be paid a total of £180000 over the remainder of my working life. Not an extravagant salary - about £15k a year - but enough to keep me.

That's not a con, it's basic planning. You know not the day nor the hour. If you can get life insurance, then do get it.

I got life insurance aa soon as i had my first child.

As i was early 20s it is only £7 a month until my eldest is 40, at which point i do hope my kids will be self sufficient.

We dont own our home but it will be enough to live on for roughly 5 years without DP having to work.

Pat if you are knocked off your bike and need long term care and care for your dependent DC then £15k pa is not going to go anywhere near the cost. The £180k lump sum will however stop the State stepping in until it is spent.

Couldn't find figures for the UK but when all the research was done for Obamacare they reckoned over 15% of the US working age population is uninsurable.

The £180k lump sum will however stop the State stepping in until it is spent.

It would be different if you were saying that once you receive £180k the state wouldn't step in even once the money had all been spent on your care.

But if you get £180k you're still not worse off than if you didn't get £180k.

And that is a very small minority of people. Louise is right. If i think of all the people I know who need life insurance, people with mortgages and dependent children, I can maybe think of 1 person who might be refused life insurance. And even he would probably get it, although at a much higher cost.

How do you know that only one person would have problems getting life insurance? Most people wouldn't realise that I would find it difficult for example. I think it is much more than a very small minority.

I think that it is probably easier nowadays than it used to be for those with medical conditions as the application process is more sophisticated but if the application isn't just straight forward and involves medical etc before you even find out what the cost will be and then finding it is really high you start weighing up the whether it will be worth it.

DH and I decided that we could both earn enough to pay the mortgage and look after the children if one of us died and we have good death in service benefits (and the possibility of early retirement due to ill health) with our employers anyway so for us the decision not to buy insurance was reasonable.

People really don't rely on death in service

I work for an amazing company but if I get signed off long term sick I.e never likely to return to work I then lose the rights of death in service.

Check your companies actual scheme don't just rely on it.

Also statistically you're not going to need life cover as we're all more likely to live longer and survive horrendous injuries and illnesses. What you should spend your money on is critical illness cover and income protection
Most critical illness cover has life cover built in but it's cheaper if it doesn't and you don't need life cover I.e single no dependants. Anyway off you all pop and get what cover you think suits you and don't worry about everyone else's choices.

My first line should read

People - don't rely on death in service.

People don't seem to understand that life insurance people are trying to make money.

Seriously, who do you think you're talking to on these message boards?

You have to be pretty foolish to not have life insurance if someone would suffer financially in your death.

I work for an amazing company but if I get signed off long term sick I.e never likely to return to work I then lose the rights of death in service.

It doesn't seem worth much if it only pays out if you die without going on sick leave first. Surely most people are sick for a while before dying? My company would let you have a years sick leave first followed and then you can retire due to ill health if you are unable to work again. I think that public sectors workers in the UK are covered by similar schemes so a fairly large proportion of the population.

treacle you are no better off with a life changing injury requiring care and a £180k pay out. Self funding personal care runs at about £30ph. You would need childcare on top of this at minimum £10ph. You would then have to pay all the normal outgoings of running a HH and feeding a family. £180k would not last long even if you were mortgage free.

if you were unfortunate enough to be injured enough to not be able to stay at home with your DC the position would be even worse. Not sure if it is possible to get accident and sickness insurance which benefits someone other than the person insured but if so this would be the better option to protect dependents.

I work for an amazing company but if I get signed off long term sick I.e never likely to return to work I then lose the rights of death in service.

It doesn't seem worth much if it only pays out if you die without going on sick leave first. Surely most people are sick for a while before dying?

And that's why it's quite cheap, and why employers buy it. Because it sounds like a great perk for little cost to the employer. It'll pay out if you die in an accident, or shortly after getting ill whilst on sick leave but still employed, but for most illnesses that kill you, they take a few years by which time you will no longer be on sick leave and employed, so they don't have to pay. Your employer will have let you go after 6 months or a year off.

That's why it's not a replacement for life insurance.