looking at life insurance for my dad need advice

zorgan

My dad is 79 and my mum is 69 they are currently looking for life insurance, he has seen this offer from the post office which is £7 per month, I was wondering if this is a good option for them? would this be £7 each per month and i'm a bit confused at the "critical illness part" are they still covered if they get one of the 3 outlined critical illnesses, such as

Cancer
Heart Attack
Stroke

https://www.postoffice.co.uk/life-cover/life-insurance/campaign?campaignid=PPC_LI_1005&gclid=Cj0KCQiAw9nUBRCTARIsAG11eifb59H692895haYzFIlKtGrA9gOuqNTw0kpO-9HbHID3lZslMoZ5yEaAlp1EALw_wcB

BooJewels

I think your Dad is too old for their cover and your Mum soon will be, they require you to be between 18 and 70 at commencement. That was why I looked, as all cover I've looked at recently required you to be under 70.

You have to pay extra for critical illness - terminal illness is included, but there will be strict criteria to meet those conditions. This is outlined lower down the page, with further links to their T&C, which you'd need to read carefully if your Mum wants to go ahead with it.

Aretnap

IT certainly isn't suitable for your dad.

Post Office Money Life Insurance offers up to £500,000 cover for customers who are UK residents aged 18-70 at the start of the policy. The minimum term is 5 years and cover must end before your 81st birthday.

I suspect that at 69 your mum would find that a worthwhile amount of cover would cost more than £7/month too.

Why do they need life insurance? The usual reason for getting it is to protect someone who is financially dependant on you, such as a child or a non-working spouse. At 79 and 69 they are presumably no longer working and you are presumably financially independent - so would anyone be financially worse off in the event of one or both of them dying? Do they each have their own pensions? Will your mum get a share of your dad's pension if he dies first?

The other reason older people might get life insurance is to cover funeral costs, though this is only really necessary if they don't have savings or other assets (eg a house?) to pay them, and whole of life policy (which pays out regardless of how long you live) is probably more appropriate than a term policy which pays nothing if you live beyond 80.

The critical illness cover is an add-on which means the policy will pay out if you have a heart attack or get cancer etc - whether or not they are fatal. Not choosing it doesn't mean that you are not covered if you die of cancer or a heart attack etc - you are still covered for almost all causes of death. As an aside, cancer, stroke and heart attack is an extremely limited definition of critical illnesses - most critical illness policies cover a much larger number of diseases.