Life protection plan

magicmadam

I do hope I am in the right place!! Please redirect me if not.

I had to see my Bank, Alliance & Leicester, recently and whilst there they set me up with a young man who gave me a quote for Whole of Life Plan Quotation.

I will be 70 next birthday (October) in good health etc. This plan is with Legal & General - Life cover for £5,000
Monthly Premium £17.48.
There is a cost for arranging this plan - L&G will pay commission to your financial adviser etc....£168.66 immediately and then from month 25, £0.44 each month until the end of the plan.

This would be paid out to my eldest son to cover my funeral expenses etc.

I like the idea of this but is this the best way to go about it? I feel I must put something in place so that my children will not be burdened with these costs themselves.

Any, advice would be gratefully received. Thank you MM

somewhatnew

Be careful with this - is it a Whole of Life Plan? Banks rarely do this policies. If it is WoL then it may look a good price at the moment but they tend to go up considerably in cost after 10 years. Make sure its not a term assurance or Over 50's life cover plan.

If your concern is simply funeral cover, have you thought about a funeral plan? If you go online and google 'funeral cover' then a number of companies should come up... the co-op funeral, dignity funeral, axa fun, etc, to name a few.

They allow you to pay your funeral off up front in one lump sum or over a number of months / years. No worrying about increases in the WoL premium, no claims having to be made, no inheritance tax, no delays in claims due to probate, no trust requirements... and so on.

Once a funeral is paid up its done. Give your son the paperwork, one day when he needs it its all ready to go.

dunstonh

A&L have whole of market advisers (its not a full IFA service as it seems more panel based and of course A&L have their oar in the process). So, WOL from L&G is likely. its still salesforce based and not that good (I have two complaints in process against our local branch at the moment for mis-sales).

NU do a non-investment backed WOL which can be attractive. Its available in single premium or limited premium period. That gets round the investment risk issues. I think L&G do one as well as the older investment backed one.

magicmadam

Thank you both very much for replying so promptly.
Yes, it is a WoL Protection Plan

dunstonh #3 -it took me a little while to work our what NU stands for - Norwich Union!! Not used to all this!!

somewhatnew #2 you have rather opened a can or worms!! You mentioned the Co-op.
I have an endowment policy with them (CIS) which will payout £2,068.80 minimum 25 August 2010 (next year)
I pay £21.12 per month Direct Debit. It says 'my name' as Life Assured.

I used to know what I was doing when the man came to collect the money each month!! But now with DD's it gets almost forgotten.

A bit of background. As I said I will be 70 yrs next October. I live alone and only have state pension coming in.
This has all come about because my youngest son got killed a couple of years ago and died intestate.

My eldest son had to pay for everything, funeral etc.
I don't want him to have this burden when I go.

I really think I must read all the papers properly and/or call the Agent in.

Should I put the pay out from the Endowment Policy toward a WoL policy for me?
I will have a good read of the file which I usually only open to put the statements in!!

I do appreciate your help. Thank you both MM