Life Assurance Advice - Please

dontbuythesun

Hello all, complete newbie to the site, have to say that I wish I had found the site before now might of saved myself a shed load of money.
Anyway I need a little bit of advice from the Life Assurance experts.
I have been holding a 25 year life assurance policy with critical illness for 7 years now, the policy is joint and costs me nearly £22 a month. The amount of payout on death is £45,000 and is not decreasing as time goes by. I have recently telephoned the company I have the Assurance with to take an additional policy which has redundancy cover included. The additonal policy costs me a further £25 a month. The level of cover is similar to the initial policy but after reading through some of the site info and some forum chat, I sort of get the feeling I am being ripped off. Also I noticed that when I took the original policy out I was a smoker, about a month after taking the policy out I quit, would this reduce my monthly outgoings, is it worth mentioning this to attempt a reduction in monthly payments? The policy is taken out with Legal & General and on speaking to them the advice given was to not cancel the original policy as it was a good policy, obviously I took the advice.
Thank you in advance for any advice offered.

dunstonh

The policy is taken out with Legal & General and on speaking to them the advice given was to not cancel the original policy as it was a good policy, obviously I took the advice.

Tied companies are not allowed to recommend cancellation of existing plans. So, they are correct in telling you not to cancel. To do so would be a rule breach. IFAs can tell you to cancel though. You are just going through the wrong type of company.

It may or may not be better. Yes you are no longer a smoker but you are 7 years older. Plus the Critical illness definitions on the old plan may be better than the new plan. In addition are you comparing like for like. The old plan may have guaranteed premiums, the new one may be reviewable.

With CI plans, a lot of the older ones are better than modern plans and worth sticking with. However, historically there have been budget and comprehensive versions over the years and different insurers covered different illnesses so unless you do a proper comparison, looking at price alone doesnt mean a thing.

dontbuythesun

Thnaks for the advice, I will run a comparison within the next few days.