Life Insurance and Wills

[firsttimemummy11]

My partner and I aren't married yet but we've recently had our first child together and we still currently rent (hopefully not for too much longer).

We are looking to sort out life insurance and our wills - but have no idea where to start?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you 😊

As you're not married, it's absolutely vital that you get wills sorted sooner rather than later, as if one of you dies, the survivor isn't entitled to anything.

I'm a will writer and I suggest that you get the ball rolling by making an appointment with someone who will lead you through the process. Most will writers will charge around £300 for a pair of standard, simple wills. Solicitors firms generally charge more because they tend to work out of high street offices with much higher overheads.

So far as life insurance is concerned, you need an IFA. Remember to take into account any death in service benefits which either of you may already have in place and check that you've appointed each other/your children as your beneficiaries; it's possible that if you started at the company many years ago, before you got together and had your child, you appointed your parents as beneficiaries at that time.

This is so helpful, thank you so much x

You don't need an IFA for simple life insurance if all you want is term assurance, ie that it pays out if one of you dies within the next x years, and neither of you have any significant medical conditions. As the product is really simple, you don't want to pay an IFA's fees and can buy it directly.

So work out how much you want (considering death in service benefits as mentioned above, then thinking about rent/mortgage costs, childcare costs, etc) Suggest you use usual comparison websites to get idea of prices, but buy directly from the life insurers. Provided they are authorised by the PRA and FCA, they have to meet certain standards so you can't go too wrong by picking the cheapest, just read all the T&C (particularly around disclosure of medical information) first.

@mumblechum0 did a brilliant job, at a very reasonable price, for our wills.

Highly recommended.

Also the life insurers will have standard forms where you can leave the polic y in trust eg to your partner so that if you ever had a property over the inheritance tax limit that policy would not be subject to the 4-% inheritance tax.

You also might want a cohabitation agreement between the two of you setting out who pays what particularly if you go on and buy a property together.

FinallyHere, thank you so much, I'm really glad you were happy with the Marlow Wills service!

I would always use a solicitor for wills.