If you don't have life insurance, why not?

[ShiteheadRevisited]

My DH says we don't need life insurance because we rent and don't have a mortgage.

But if he died (touch wood this will not happen for a very very long time!!), my salary alone wouldn't cover the rent...plus we are hoping to start a family in the next couple of years.

We are both only in our late 20s but sometimes I really really worry about our financial future... should we be spending money we don't really have right now or not bother??

No because, we both have a generous death in service payout through our work pensions.

We both have excellent pensions, so obviously if one of us dies when retired, the other can live comfortably off their work & state pension. Mortgage will be paid off before 50 anyway (all being well).

Gosh there are some heartbreaking stories in here, thank you so much for sharing, and sending those of you who are bereaved

Merry If it's HM Forces then Pax should cover you.

Dh has it with work, but he retires in about 10 days. Mortgage is gone, ds is through uni, I have a decreasing term for the mortgage, and will let it run til it stops, then won't bother. Dh's public sector pension is more than enough to live on, and we have savings. Ds is an only, so will inherit everything in due course.

We have no mortgage but we have life insurance for both of us...because we have children. If I died my dh would have to give up his current job and find something else as his current job takes him away for weeks at a time (not conducive when you are a single parent) plus it’s one less worry after the death of a spouse. Less pressure to get back to work etc
OP if you are going to start a family then you need life insurance. On another note do you have renters insurance??

I realised about five years ago that I’d reached a stage in life where I didn’t need life insurance any more, so I stopped it and used exactly the same money to buy Income Protection. I was fit and healthy and didn’t envisage using it.

A couple of years after that I developed ME/CFS and had to stop working. I am so glad I bought the cover. The monthly payments are not as much as I was earning but they are enough to pay the bills and keep me financially secure.

I would not have been covered under a critical illness policy as ME is not on the list.

No mortgage, no dependents, no need.

Sorry to jump in on your thread ShiteheadRevisited but it’s something I’ve been thinking about myself. I became a single mum to my two year old earlier this year (relationship breakdown), I work full time and live in rented accommodation. I guess I would be stupid not to get life insurance sorted ASAP right?

More importantly if you are separated insure your ex death of another to insure your kids are protected

OP, your husband doesn't sound very wise.

Unless you have a very safe job (NHS, armed forces, etc) I wouldn't place too much reliance on life insurance through work. What if one of you gets made redundant? Also, have you read the actual policies? Many have ambiguous clauses whereby the insurer may refuse to pay if too many colleagues die at the same time (eg an accident in the building).

You don't have kids now, but, ideally, you should get life insurance BEFORE you try to conceive. Don't wait till after kids are born. What if the husband were to die while you're pregnant, would you be able to cope financially?

Most people size life insurance so as to cover the two key expenses of housing costs and childcare. By 'cover' I mean the amount should let you pay for the house, pay for childcare and get back to work, or should allow you to take 1-2 years off work if that's what you would like to do, etc.

Happy thoughts, I know, but the way I see it is that the risk is very low, but happens and the consequences of that very low risk would be too catastrophic for a family to ignore. That's me - to each their own, of course.

Also be sure to write the policy in trust; it doesn't cost anything and most insurers can send you specific forms to arrange it. It means that, if you die, the payment is not considered part of your estate, but goes directly to a trust which distributes it according to your wishes. This avoids inheritance tax. By the way, it's perfectly legal, not some kind of dodgy trick.

Another thing which doesn't cost too much is to update wills and nominate guardians for your children should both parents die. This is never fully binding (eg if you appoint your sister but she gets arrested for drugs, no judge will give her your children...).

What may cost a bit is to get legal advice on what happens to your assets if you both die while your children are little. In these cases you probably want to set up a trust and appointed a trusted relative or friend to manage it for the benefit of your children, but legal advice on this can be expensive. Worth it if your assets, including insurance payouts, are, say, £1m+, probably not worth it, if they're £100k.

Never had it. Me and ex worked full time he had dis £200k. We had lots of savings and had almost paid off the mortgage before dc.
Now my dp and I have 4 houses between us mortgage free, still work part time and have lots of savings.

If your salary wouldn’t cover the rent then you definitely need life insurance. And if you have kids. At your age it’s probably about £10 a month!

I have two mental illness diagnosis which makes it very difficult / expensive to get life insurance. Fortunately the DC’s dad is fairly well off and would be able to cover the costs of my funeral and take the kids in. He has life insurance so that if anything happens to him the DC will be ok financially.

My DH can’t get life insurance. With the growth of the gig economy and forced “self employment”, death in service payouts through a workplace must be increasingly rare.

Because I had PND after DS was born. Apparently I’m too much of a risk to insure.

Nope. Both mine and my husbands death in service is enough to pay off our mortgage, meaning the other could work part time if we were on our own.

I took out life insurance when I had my son so 25 years ago I have two policy’s of £100k each one for my son and one for my DH they are written in trust

My mum passed away recently and thankfully my dad had an insurance payout that covered the whole cost of the funeral wake and flowers and left him with a few thousand pounds

I even have one on my son just in case anything happened to him I pay about 9 a month for 100k

I am thinking of taking out a smaller insurance policy of around 20k for both myself and DH and it’s only £7 a month each

Money doesn’t make you any happier in times of grief but it’s certainly bloody helps
I’ve seen a few friends who have been absolutely screwed when there partner or spouse has died and they have absolutely nothing and have to go-back to work when they are grieving

We have life and critical illness insurance, linked to the outstanding balance of our mortgage. We are early 40s, no kids.

Last year, DH was diagnosed with a treatable, but incurable, blood cancer. He was self employed, so his income disappeared overnight whilst he underwent treatment and he wasn’t able to work all year. When he was able to work from the start of 2019, he found a new job but the salary was about half his previous earnings. The fact our critical illness insurance paid out was real peace of mind for our mortgage.

Insurance is a gamble. You are paying for something you hope you never need, but when the unthinkable happens, it’s a godsend.

We have it through work but never paid for it while we had a mortgage. We would have been able to pay the mortgage on our individual salaries so it didn’t seem a necessity.

Life cover is very cheap if you are still young. dh has always had good cover through work, I pay for mine. We now have no mortgage but both think that it would be better to experience grief in luxury than to be in reduced circumsatnces, which we would be without each other.

I have life insurance so that if anything happened to me it would cover the DCs living costs til they are adults as XH unlikely to be able to afford it.

It would also leave enough to pay for a funeral.

An acquaintance lost her partner a couple of years ago, she was a SAHM with no income and no life insurance. She ended up relying on food banks, handouts from relatives and a go fund me to pay for the funeral and rent and had to go straight out and look for a job when she was in the early stages of grieving.

Money will not take away the pain of loss, but it can make the loss much much less stressful.

I didn't for years because I didn't have any dependents. My mum now lives with me and has no income of her own, really. I have life insurance enough to pay off the mortgage and give her some spare to keep her going for a few years so that she doesn't have to worry about losing her home or having to sell the house straight away. She can have time and space to grieve without money worries.

We have insurance to cover the mortgage but not a lump pay out. Also have critical illness and cover if I was unable to do my specific professional job due to illness or injury (say blindness).

Mortgage paid off and DH and I have death in service benefits through work. Our DC are also in their 20s. We did have life insurance until the mortgage was paid off though.

Sorry to add, we don’t have Additional life insurance anymore

We can't afford it.