life insurance and death!

LillyJ

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

A joint policy isn't expensive, and is well worth having.

Yes I was very surprised by the cost, we were quoted just £7.02 joint, which seems very good to me, so we will definately be getting it.

chappers

LillyJ wrote: »

What is increasing term? We thought we needed decreasing term?

If we got a joint policy, it would be to cover the whole loan, ie both halfs of the house.

A decreasing term would cover each of your liabilities for the mortgage, which should decrease as you pay off more of your mortgage and would be perfectly adequate for joint tenants where the other partners half would pass to the other joint tenant.
However as you are tenants in common and the deceased's half would pass to their benificiary/NOK, if you wanted your partner to be able to buy out, the benificiary/NOK you need to take out a policy that leaves them with sufficient cover to cover a possible rise in the value of the property(increasing term, that way your beneficery could benefit indirectly as your partner would have enough to cover your liability and to be able to buy out your beneficiary)so you need either an increasing term policy or at the very least a level term policy.However if as I said before you are happy to leave the surviving partner to fend for themselves then you only need to cover your own liability to protect your beneficeries.

In essence if you wanted to leave something for your next of kin and to make sure your partner took on no extra liabilities I would write a will making it clear who the beneficieries where to what and add a codicil to the effect giving the surviving partner a right to buy at market value. then make sure your have enough cover, in favour of your beneficeries, to cover your liabilities and then extra cover in favour of your partner to be able to exercise their right to buy.