Life and critical illness insurance for PhD student

Kyshus

Hello there,

I would be very grateful for some advice. I am buying my first flat at 75k with 90% ltv mortgage. My mortgage is all arranged but now I am unsure about whether I need to take insurance out alongside it. My monthly repayments will be set at £322 a month.

I have life assurance provided by my employer at 3 x my salary (33k), so if I were to die the mortgage would be more than covered. However, I have no dependants to provide for in the event of my death.

The complicating fact is that I am due to start a PhD in October. This will mean moving to two day a week at work. In addition to my prorata salary I will received a tax free PhD stipend of 15k a year. I am keen to keep my costs as low as possible as I may not be able to work in the latter years of my PhD.

Do I need to take our life insurance and critical illness cover? What about income protection? There seems to be a lot of options and I am feeling a little overwhelmed! Any help would be fantastic. Thank you

zagubov

You may not need much insurance, or even any at all. When we got our first mortgage our employers life assurance was generous enough that we only had to buy limited depreciating insurance until our mortgage fell below what our employers would cover.

I don't recall us having to prove that.

If you've no dependants, I'm skeptical you need any at all.

Incidentally as you'e in a university town, have you considered having a lodger?

dunstonh

Life assurance is not needed if no-one is worse off in the event of your death.
Generically, you have a financial need for income protection and critical illness cover. The former being the pecking order before the latter.