to expect parents to have life insurance as a matter of course?

[probablyoverinsured]

Is it not the first thing you think about when you first hold your newborn? How can I best care for this little one? What do I need to do/sacrifice to ensure their welfare? in any circumstances?

I appreciate you can't be insured for every eventuality, and with the best will in the world, you can think you have taken out adequate insurance, and in the event it doesn't actually pay out for some reason or other.

But it's about £2 a week, in most cases - surely this is factored into the cost of providing for a child, when you do your calculations? I expect there are a few that can't afford it, but most can.

I am just amazed to hear of someone recently, really struggling, with no life insurance payout for the children, because there was no policy.

Am I living in a fool's paradise? Don't most parents have life insurance? Am I just showing my ignorance? Why wouldn't a parent have life insurance? Do you? if not, why not?

It pays out on death, including suicide. There aren’t make clauses they can get out on (and I don’t partake in any high risk activities that might increase my chance of death - no rock climbing here) so I’m not sure what they could use to weasel out of paying…

If you’re paying £2 a week you’re almost certainly underinsured, not over insured. Most parents don’t immediately think ‘what if I die’ when they hold their newborn, so no, most people for that and many other reasons don’t have life insurance or sufficient life insurance.

what a shame that your first though on hearing about the death of a parent and the family’s subsequent financial struggles was ‘why weren’t they as well organised and smug as me?’ Instead of, what a terrible secondary loss for the family.

OP your promotion/normalisation of life insurances being sold at the time of taking out a mortgage is potentially dodgy - the policies touted by mortgage dealers etc are often not in the best interest of the customer, the dealer's got a financial incentive to sell them (and not to encourage the customer to check whether they've already got equivalent cover for free through their employer).

My DH's illness meant he had to take ill health retirement. When he died, we didn't get the death in service cover, because he was no longer working.

The death in service cover is all very well if someone dies of a heart attack or in an accident. But if they have cancer...not so much.

when he dies there would be £0 payout because there is always a loophole.

I haven't read all the small print, but one thing I've noticed with those over-50s adverts that fund all of commercial daytime TV is that they state you will be covered as long as you keep up your payments.

Obviously, nobody would be claiming that the policy protection should still stay in place if you actively decide to stop paying - or even if you can simply no longer afford to pay for it - but I always wonder how long it takes for you to stop paying before it's voided. Do they allow people to pay manually/at the post office etc., or is it direct debit only? Because if they allow the former, considering that a great many people would end up missing making payments in the weeks before their death for obvious myriad reasons, I'd have thought there would be scores of people paying faithfully for years - decades, even - and then the claim being refused, just because they were very ill/in hospital/just ran out of time to sort everything in the two week decline before their death. Is this how it works? Does anybody know?

We have joint life cover and it costs £8 per month. It's decreasing cover purely to cover the mortgage cost around £125k. Taken out in late 20s/ early 30s with minor existing health conditions.
So whilst possible to get cover that cheaply it certainly wouldn't be that cheap for everyone depending on their circumstances!

There are lots of specialist brokers around and it's very much worth going in that direction – we did for a condition my DH had. There's no saying that he might die of the condition - he could get run over – so worth exploring.

That's a pretty insensitive post OP. Not everyone has the money or is "healthy" enough for insurance.

Hmm. Are you sure? We just remortgaged last year and thought about adding critical illness, early 40s, non-smokers and no health conditions, and it was waaaaay more than £40pcm. It was at least £100 I think.

Due to medical history life assurance was simply out of my price range.

My DH has a genetic disease so can't get life insurance for anything connected. Since the disease increases the risks of loads of things like heart attacks and cancer, life insurance would only cover accidental death. He does not have it.

It probably is true but either covers hardly anything, or is a very low pay out.

what a shame that your first though on hearing about the death of a parent and the family’s subsequent financial struggles was ‘why weren’t they as well organised and smug as me?’ Instead of, what a terrible secondary loss for the family.

Yes, exactly. Comments about the financial struggles now being experienced by Nicola Bulley's family are extremely tasteless. Do we even know whether they have/had health conditions preventing them from getting affordable/any life insurance - or their ability to afford it, even at standard prices, if their circumstances would allow? Have the scum media invaded their privacy and dragged through all of that as well as everything else?

£2 a week? It'll be utterly crap

Never had it because imo it's a waste of money. We always saved instead and paid down the mortgage which had critical illness cover.
Death in service and I have always worked.
Plus pensions that pay out.
Ridiculous OP.
I agree it sounds like a really bad advert for life insurance.

We don't have it, and should - late 30s/early 40s, three kids, oppressive mortgage. It's perpetually on my to-do list, though I'm going to stop and look into it properly now. I've just looked up DH's employer and they have death in service benefit, at least.

Also all those saying get insurance when you are very young - I am in my late fifties. When I was young critical assurance had only just been designed, was very expensive and had so many exclusions even the experts said it was not worth taking out. Life insurance was also way more expensive and only came down sharply in price once internet use became common.

Utterly crap or term life insurance for a healthy 20 year old that runs out when they hit 30.

I looked at critical illness. Decided it wasn’t a good investment. For - £30k decreasing payout it would cost £10k over the course of the term. So I’d need to get an illness in the first or second third of the policy to actually benefit beyond the cost. We have some savings so think they’re better in high interest account than a depreciating and expensive policy.

We don’t have life insurance, but we both have decent death in service payment which will pay off the mortgage if one of us dies

I was the Underwriting Manager for a big life insurance company for 10 years+. I can't even begin to describe how much the OP has oversimplified things.

Only very certain types of life cover will be that cheap - such as decreasing term assurance - and only for certain people who fit into a very narrow category. The better types of life cover - such as whole of life - will be way, way more expensive than that and of course, it won't cover critical illness cover either which some would argue is more important than life cover. Also, some insurance policies have increasing premiums which rocket drastically - the low start premium can just be an incentive to take it out. Plus if you're older, or unwell, or need a higher amount of cover for your mortgage/debts it will be more expensive.

If you take out the cheap term assurance now, unless it has a renewable option, it will expire and then you'll have to take out life insurance when you're older - and you won't be getting a quote for £6 per month then....

There are all sorts of reasons why people can't get life cover, and why they might be declined. Health, occupation, hobbies - I can't get life cover because of my family history. Nothing to do with my health at all. Certain conditions in your family history will make you uninsurable, even if you're completely well yourself.

I am in my 40s and life cover has never been an essential for a mortgage. They like to imply it is, but it's not the case.

Of course life insurance is a good idea. And definitely, absolutely critical illness cover. But it's not always possible and it can be bloody expensive. Big assumptions you've made there OP.

There are lots of specialist brokers around and it's very much worth going in that direction – we did for a condition my DH had. There's no saying that he might die of the condition - he could get run over – so worth exploring.

The problem is, though, that even if you can get 'second-class sub-person special limited life insurance' that will supposedly pay out if you die of something unconnected, with a lot of conditions, almost every cause of death short of being squashed by a runaway steamroller can be potentially attributable to your condition.

Insurance companies are just fancy bookies with an office in central London, so of course they will use any excuse possible to avoid paying out.

It's not much of a choice to be left with, but I'd rather at least know the score rather than die with the false assurance that my family would be looked after financially, when they most likely wouldn't be at all.

I must be living through 20 week months then based on the cost of mine and it supposedly being £2 a week. I’ve never smoked, don’t drink, I’m 31, work out for an hour a week 5 days a week, walk my dog 3 miles a day (sometimes more), never had an illness. I must be being ripped off! I only got it last year because I’ve never been able to afford it before, what takes priority, definitely needing food or maybe dying young?

Out of my school friends every single one of us has a good job, there are 8 of us. Only 2 own our houses because we can’t afford the deposit, so needing one for your mortgage is irrelevant for 3/4 of the group. 5 have children though.

@StalkedByASpider What about income protection Vs critical illness? This is what I've got but never see it pushed as much as the others? It would cover my outgoings, but obviously no nice lump sum, but wonder if I've missed something important. (No dependants so life cover not worth it for me)

I don’t, because I have a fantastic death in service benefit at work (12 x salary). My wife doesn’t as I wouldn’t need her income if she sadly died. People have lots of reasons for not having it.