Life insurance quotes cheaper than our IFA's?

OshayAway

What insurance company it the quote you've found with? Is it guaranteed or reviewable premiums? Does it include total, permanent disability(TPD)? Does it have Waiver of premium? Is it decreasing term assurance? If so do you know the policy decrease interest rate of your quote compared with that your IFA presented?

dunstonh

No, it's from a diffferent insurance provider. I did find a cheaper quote from them, but it wasn't the cheapest.

Yes, it includes critical illness cover.

Is the CI cover budget level or comprehensive? not all CI coverage is the same. Indeed, there can be quite big differences.

I asked our IFA about placing the policies in trust when he gave us our new quotes and he said to just write mirror wills (we're not married). I've read about the tax implications of it going towards part of an estate (which he never mentioned). I assume that he said this incase my OH and I were to split up any time whilst still the beneficiaries for each others policies, but he never gave us any reasons for his answer.

he may have been planning to write them on "life of another" rather than single owner, same life.

Beckyy

dunstonh, the critical illness cover on the premiums from our IFA and own quotes are exactly same. I think these are just 'standard' cover.

OshayAway wrote: »

What insurance company it the quote you've found with? Is it guaranteed or reviewable premiums? Does it include total, permanent disability(TPD)? Does it have Waiver of premium? Is it decreasing term assurance? If so do you know the policy decrease interest rate of your quote compared with that your IFA presented?

There are two around the same price, give or take a few pence. Legal & General and Bright Grey.

Premiums are guaranteed.

Both companys cover TPD.

Neither have Waiver of premium - it's only a shade above £10 per month so I don't think we need it.

It's Level Term Assurance, not decreasing.

OshayAway

Is it Bright Grey's "Lifestyle Plus" policy?

Beckyy

It seems to be called just lifestyle cover. There's no mention of a 'plus'. Are they one and the same, or is it an extra?

OshayAway

Beckyy wrote: »

It seems to be called just lifestyle cover. There's no mention of a 'plus'. Are they one and the same, or is it an extra?

I thought it might be.

If it has lifestyle (lifestyle plus - same thing) in the title it is BG's budget policy. It its not really comparable to L&G's proposition. Does not include a Guaranteed Insurability Option. It also only covers 22 critical illness conditions compared with L&G's 39.

Also, BG's lifestyle does not have any ABI+ conditions, L&G have 11. There is no children's CI cover, there is with L&G along with other partial payments.

There are several other things as well but you get the idea. It's not for me, or anyone else one here to advise you what to do but hopefully from this you can see that there are several factors to consider, many of which are not necessarily obvious or apparent unless you know what to look for. An important part of an advisers job is to point such things out.

For what it's worth, I would only ever arrange a plan like this where budget was so tight it was the only viable option. Any adviser would need to carefully document and justify a recommendation for such a product due to it's limitations compared with alternatives available.

It doesn't always carry that you get what you pay for with term assurance but this is a perfect example of the variations on policy features should be factored in, not just price.

I hope that is of some use to you.

OshayAway

Quentin wrote: »

You being a broker suggesting there is some advantage (should anything go wrong) by using a broker instead of getting it cheaper online.

But there is no advantage with a level term assurance policy, so we should get it as cheap as we can, from wherever.

I think this is the first time I've disagreed with anything you've posted, not that I've read them all!

For what it's worth I also disagree with Martin on this point. 'The cheaper the better' is not applicable to any form of Term Assurance IMO but especially so with CIC, as demonstrated with this case.

But even just for life only cover there are factors to consider, small variations that can have a huge impact. It's the reason that the FSA is looking at term assurance comparison sites very carefully where all the focus is put on price.

I've personally handled a £50,000 claim for life benefit under the free cover offered by some policies while a policy is in application stage. That's £50,000 the family would not have got if they had applied for a budget or supermarket policy.

I've also arranged GIO increases where medical history prevented a new application.

Beckyy

Oshayway, thank you for your reply. You've actually given more information in that one post than our IFA has on it - which is kind of what's bothered me. We've basically just been told 'take this out and if you die it will pay the mortage for your OH, or if you get cancer get your Dr. to write a letter and you get a tidy payout.' We weren't asked if we wanted X/X or X, or advised why these specific policies were recommended for us instead of others, nor were we given specific details on extras such as child cover/fee waivers/guaranteed insurability etc. Maybe he's used to people just accepting they've been given the best option, but if I'm paying for an advised sale I want to feel like I have been advised - If I had, chances are I wouldn't have even bothered looking myself. I hope that doesn't sound too whingy.

We have an app. on Friday afternoon to discuss Home Insurance and compare what I have found with his quotes, as I was intending to take that out myself until he wanted to look at his quotes. We'll also be discussing the life insurance as I've decided not to take it out myself and have mentioned that I want to take OH's policy out ourselves for less. So I'm off to go through all the policies with a fine toothcomb and compare everything. :think:

ACG

Thats a good point, he might not be a bad advisor...it might just be that hes done it for that long hes got into a bad habbit. Hopefully i wont get into that but id love for someone to give me a kick up the backside and to get me on my toes if i did do that.

Im not sure how to say this without it coming across badly or possibly confusing you, but is there any reason why he hasnt recommended income protection/PHI?
Critical Illness is great, but you are statistically more likely to claim on Income Protection. If you become ill but it isnt through a CI (Back pain for example or stress) then you are not going to get a payout. I sell more Income Protection than anything else because for the majority of people, it should be the first policy considered.

Beckyy

ACG, I have no idea. I did wonder myself when talking about it with my brother. We initially got our life insurance through him when we took out our old mortgage. This was in OH's name only, as I was 17 at the time. In hindsight it didn't seem necessary at all (especially for me) - we were both young and healthy. He said we needed to look after each other though (even though no trusts were mentioned and neither of us had wills so wouldn't have been beneficiaries anyway) and it was better to take it out now than when we were much older. Part of me did wonder if it was for the benefit of commisson (feel a bit bad saying that!).

It also made my OH think that he only needed to have a 'scare' of something like cancer, make a quick recovery, and he would get £100K land in his bank account, which of course isn't the case.