Help...feeling stressed about organising life insurance and wills.

[Skinnywhippet]

I have no idea where to start with all this. If you have either...how did you go about it? I am married, have a mortgage so suppose it should be done. I assumed wills wouldn't be too much problems because I am married. Life insurance is the big one that needs sorting. Please help.

Ps. No children and am 26.

If you have no children, and both earn enough to live comfortably without the other's income as long as the mortgage was paid off, you probably only need a Decreasing Term life insurance - basically you take it over the same term as your mortgage and if one of you died it would pay out (roughly) the same amount as your mortgage so that was repaid. If you decide to do this, try to ensure you have some savings to pay for a funeral. You could also take a small policy of level term cover to pay funeral expenses if you would prefer.

If your circumstances change then you would need to revisit your cover eg if you increase the mortgage, have a baby etc.

No idea about wills, sorry!

The mortgage lender typically would have required this at the outset of the mortgage, so you probably have the decreasing life cover insurance already.

Worth checking if you have any death in service cover from your employer. Amounts vary, but you may have.

Beachy the lender cannot insist she takes life insurance, so although OP has probably been offered it she hasn't necessarily taken it.

to decide on life insurance: what happens if one of you suddenly isn't there tomorrow? Will the other one struggle to pay the bills and the mortgage? If so, then get life insurance. As someone else notes, employers often provide this because it doesn't cost much. Make sure the employers know who the next of kin is, same for pensions.

you do need a will, dying intestate is a serious pain for those left behind. The usual practice is to make mirror wills: he leaves everything to you, you leave everything to him. If you both die within a short period, or on the death of the second person, where do you want your assets to go? You can have the will written to allow for any future children, or if this is not in the plan, to allow for future children of relatives if that's where you want the money to go. Don't leave fixed sums to anyone - leave percentages. Consider at what age you would want children to have control of money - letting 18 year olds inherit is a high risk of having it all squandered.

There is usually a 'will aid' month in November, or getting mirror wills done shouldn't cost more than about £200. while you are at the solicitor - have a think about living wills if that is an issue for you.

sort it, then get on with life. Revisit the will if circumstances change.

Can you buy life insurance online?

Yes and no. You can complete an application online and get some quotes such as at MoneySupermarket. Give them your phone number and request a call back... they can then go through the finer detail.

They have some guides about the different types of insurance on their website. You could also go direct to insurers like aviva, who have an online quote system.

Consider why you need life insurance and how much you need it to pay out on death, plus who it would pay.

you can buy life insurance online however the companies only work from a panel and they don't give you advice. It's best to get advice from an indpendent broker. moneysuper market tell you the cheapest form of life cover is decreasing life cover, it's it not family income benefit it. so getting advice is normally best. Plus they often do everything for you x

I know an independant broker that can help with this. if interested get in touch with your details so I can recommend u for a personalised service.

Wills are one of the things you really need to sort - its cheap and easy to do, and Mumblechum on here is apparently v good. She has an ad in small business ads under Marlow wills.

Before we had ds, we had enough life insurance to pay off the mortgage and give the other one money enough to give them a cushion while they decided what to do.

We had a basic tesco life insurance policy which was fine and v easy to organise (paid off mortgage in case of either or both of DH/I dying).

For various reasons we wanted more cover - incl crit illness - and needed to get our wills sorted. We used an IFA which was absolutely brilliant. She answered every question, went through it all with us and made recommendations. It just means my mind is now at rest and I know we are sorted if you know what I mean.

We have appointed trustees for our Wills and they have the IFAs details who will help them sort all the insurances etc and manage all of our outstanding
affairs as required should we both go at once.

Would recommend using an IFA from day one as you will then know you have it all under control.

Thank you mutely. How do you find an ifa? Friends recommendations?

Yep it was a recommendation. Often friends/family who are self-employed are good to ask I've found as they have more complex issues and therefore often rely on a professional to help!