Someone please talk to me about life insurance

[Perfectlyimperfectineveryway]

Basically I need some sound advice about life insurance and what I need from it.
I'm 26. 2 kids. Renting no mortgage as of yet. Not married. I want to ensure when I go my kids get some money, enough for them each to purchase a house or keep them ok for a good amount of time.

Please talk to me about what sort of stuff I need to look out for etc

Thanks

Thanks for posting...i shall watch with interest as also need to obtain this

Hopefully someone will know haha

Do you want life assurance that just pays out on death or also on disability/ critical illness?

Are currently healthy?

Shop around on price comparison sites and play around with amount and length of cover to see what your premiums might be (and what you’re prepared to pay). At 26 your premiums should be quite cheap assuming you don’t have any pre existing conditions. You’re unlikely to get cover cheaper in the future so think about whether you just want cover until your children are 18 or whether you might need it for anything else later on. My mum still has a policy that will run until she’s 80 even though my parents don’t really need it. The monthly premiums are basically peanuts after 40 odd years of inflation so they’ve just kept it going and it is very good value for her age and health.

People with mortgages often take out a decreasing term to match their mortgage but that doesn’t apply to you.

You need to check if you have a flat premium for the life of the policy or whether the company can uplift premiums or ask for new information.

I have endometriosis and had treatment for pre cancerous cervical cells however currently healthy and well.
I'm confused with the critical illness/death thing I think I want a pay out for the kids when I die rather than if I got a disability or critical illness.

I think I would want a lifetime policy so no limit on time

I think life insurance is useful when you have young children, so if anything happens to you there would be money left to make sure they were cared for. However once say they reach the age of 18 years and possibly in work themselves and no longer financially dependent on you I would have a rethink. I have terminated mine now once my children had left home for the following reasons. Every few years you are given the choice to increase your monthly payments or agree to the total payout being considerably reduced. I think initially 20 years ago they payout upon my death would have been perhaps 200 k for possibly £26 monthly. I was never in a position to be able to increase my monthly payments which I think were almost doubling every few years. It seemed pointless to continue and I worked out that my children would receive eventually a few thousand if I lived until I was in my 70's. I decided to terminate my policy, having paid in to it for years and received no final payment which initially made me feel that I had simply wasted all that money. However it is what the name implies ' life insurance ' just as you insure your car or home, you are insuring yourself in the event something happens and money will be paid out to your children. So yes whilst they are growing up I think it is a good thing to have. Once they grow up in my opinion it would be better to pay a set amount in to some sort of savings plan or pension.

That's an interesting thought actually. I'm tempted to just save some each month and write it up in a will that x savings account is to be split between the children?

My policy is with Legal & General - I pay approx £8 pm for £100k cover for my daughter if I die. It'll pay for her first car, house deposit and wedding. No way I could save up that much money just in case I get hit by a bus.
I phoned l&g, went through the quote process and then went away to think before buying.
Just don't lie about any health issues as it won't pay out.

Call London & County. They do mortgage advice but also standalone protection advice, and are free and independent