Help on life insurance please when self employed

[zerotolerancezone]

Would be grateful for any help please!

DH is newly self employed through a limited company which means we're losing his work benefits such as pension, death in service etc. We'll sort the pension when there's a bit more cash coming in but I feel we need to sort life insurance of some description ASAP.

We don't have children or a mortgage yet (but hope to in coming years) so any cover would just be to support me, if he dies over the subsequent years. His payment from work world have been about 3x his salary.

What should we be considering and looking for? The same sort of figure? Is critical illness worry getting? Are there any providers that are particularly good?

Not something we've done before so feeling a bit clueless. TIA.

DH and I have a fixed term fixed payment policy each
its the cheapest way
only took it out a few years ago - because we never had the money before
BUT we have children and a house

we have always worked on the principle that either of us could support the family

I think you should sort out your OH's pension first.
Without having children or a mortgage, I don't think you need life insurance. Without meaning to be harsh, if he dies and you can no longer afford the rent, you can move somewhere cheaper.
It is arguably more likely he'll be hit by a bus and be badly injured and unable to work than succumb to one of the specific critical illnesses covered by CI insurance. Many people at my place of work are undergoing treatment for cancer, and many thankfully are in remission and back at work. I therefore suggested you need to look at income protection insurance, which will pay up to 80% (I think) of your OH's salary for the rest of his life if he was involved in an accident and unable to work.

I'm doing a pension now.
With a Ltd co there is so much leeway to pile in contributions later in life, I'm glad I did not do it earlier

Thank you, that's really helpful, if slightly conflicting on the pension stuff

I've just done something similar , and replaced my employed 'death in service ' benefit with a life insurance policy to cover the same amount, until the kids are out of uni, plus 1 yr salary amount of critical illness cover. Life insurance excluding critical illness is pretty cheap , especially if you are quite young.

Make sure you take out guaranteed premiums so they don't increase over time, and also put into trust so the benefits are not part of his estate if the worst happened.

I went with Aegis , which were the 2nd cheapest quite but my adviser said that they covered many more critical illness conditions than the cheapest one.

zero
I'm nearly 50 and mortgage free and my kids are late teens - therefore I can now afford to look out for myself a bit more.

That and I never plan to retire anyway