Parky flogs death insurance with a plastic pen. Is it a good deal?

You’re perhaps already doing this, Martin, but I wonder if you fancy grinding out the maths & do an article on the big TV campaign Michael Parkinson is doing for an ‘over 50’s plan’. He seems to be trying to get financially inexperienced old people to buy a rather grim policy. The ad chillingly ends with Parky leaning into the camera, oozing concerned integrity and offering a plastic biro in return for a financial commitment that might last 50 years.

AXA’s MD says Parky gets big bucks to flog policies because "Sir Michael Parkinson is known as a man of integrity”. His integrity value presumably shot up yesterday when the government almost gave him a sainthood by appointing him "dignity ambassador" to encourage us to respect old people more.

AXA say in the advert, there’s no lump sum paid out in the first 2 years that you pay in. (if you’re old & worried about funeral expenses, that seems sad). They say they’ll void the policy if you miss payments before dying (Surely in the months before your funeral, you might be a little too preoccupied with dying, to worry about instalments?) I’d guess a woman aged 50, would normally pay every month for around 35 years before claiming. Would AXA pay out nothing if she misses the payment before her death?

If they do pay out, 35 years of inflation might make the lump-sum almost pointless?

Even if policy holders avoid the small print & get a pay-out, a MSM Money article, say on average you’d not even get back what you’d paid in. They compare a £15,000+ return from an average stock market fund to less than £3,500 with the same contributions to AXA & call it a ‘shoddy money scheme’. They've 640,000 current policyholders. (Sorry Martin, I only Googled this article on writing my note, I'm not asking you to out number-crunch the MSM article).