Cover options
Let's talk about your options
Protect the ones you love with the right cover
- Choosing the right cover means thinking about what you need to protect the people you love. This can include any money you owe, like a mortgage and the cost of living now and in the future.
- To help you, we’ve explained some of the main options you can choose on your policy and how it will affect your pay out if you need it.
level or decreasing cover
Level or decreasing cover explained
Life Insurance
Level cover
- Level cover pays out a lump sum should you die during the term of the policy. If you've added critical illness cover on to your policy then it'll pay out if you're diagnosed with one of the listed critical illnesses, or if you were to die during the term of the policy. You may decide to leave this money to your family and dependants, or pay off a mortgage.
- It provides certainty as both the cover amount and your premiums are fixed for the term.
- You can choose both the amount of cover in £'s and the term - from 5 to 50 years.
Reasons for not choosing 'level cover'
- Level cover is usually more expensive than decreasing cover.
- It doesn't keep up with inflation and will be worth less in the future.
Life Insurance
Decreasing cover
- The amount of money you’re covered for reduces year on year, making this a good option to cover the reducing amount you may owe on a capital and interest repayment mortgage or other loans.
- It provides you with a lump sum of money that decreases usually in-line with your debt.
- Your premium remains the same for the duration of your policy.
- Is usually cheaper than level cover.
- You can choose both the starting amount of cover in £'s and the term - from 5 to 50 years.
Reasons for not choosing 'decreasing cover'
- If you have an interest-only mortgage or you are planning to make under or overpayments this product may not be suitable for you.
- Depending on interest rates and when you die, the amount of money paid may be more or less than the amount you owe on your mortgage or loan.
length of cover
How long do you need your cover to last?
Our life insurance and life with critical illness cover can run between 5 to 50 years.
If the money is going to be used to help pay the costs of raising your children, you might want it to end once your youngest is old enough to support themselves.
If the money is to be used to repay a mortgage, you may want it to end when the mortgage is repaid.
Amount of cover
For many people, how much they can afford is also important
To help you decide how much you need, think carefully about the financial needs of your family or dependants.
- Protecting your home
Often your property is one of the biggest investments you will make in your lifetime, so it would make sense to protect your home, should anything happen to you. You can then be comforted knowing that your family won’t have this financial burden when they are facing a difficult time and they can remain in your home for their future. - Protecting your partner
If anything should happen to you then your partner will need to still take care of the household expenses and bills. Think about your regular household expenses and savings to understand how long your partner could last without your income and how much money the family would need. - Protecting your children
The cost of childcare is one of the biggest expenses for the family; especially if your children are thinking of attending college or university in the future, so think about how you can protect those opportunities for your children.
Single or Joint cover
Single and joint life cover explained
Single life cover
- Insures only you and pays out if there is a claim during the plan term.
- You can take single life plans as a couple. If you both take out a plan, if one person claims their plan would pay out, and the other person’s plan would continue, and they would still be covered.
- This is unlike a joint plan, which only pays out once when the first person claims. The plan then ends, and the second person is no longer covered.
Joint life cover
- Covers both people insured for the same amount of cover and length of time.
- The plan pays out for the first claim only.
- After that, the plan stops and the surviving person is no longer covered.
- Taking out a joint life insurance plan normally costs less than two single plans.
- Usually taken out where the death of either person will have a significant impact on the lifestyle of the other, particularly where there are children involved. If critical illness cover is added to the policy then this will also apply if you're diagnosed with one of the listed critical illnesses.
Important information
Children's critical illness cover
This is an option to add on to your Life with Critical Illness policy at an additional cost. This comes with a full range of benefits for your family, so whether you already have children or are planning on starting your family, you can add this option on when your policy starts or at any point as long as there is at least 5 years remaining on the policy. If the cover is later removed then it cannot be added back on.