Term Assurance

Term Assurance (with or without Critical Illness Cover) and Family Income Benefit below is a rough guide but it is not an exhaustive definition.

If you select not to receive advice on which term assurance or family income benefit plan to have, we are not responsible for the appropriateness of the product that you might choose or the level of cover chosen and consequently you will not have recourse to the Financial Ombudsman Service. We can advise on term assurance and family income benefit and provide Assurance comparisons from a wide range of assurers.

Term Assurance (with or without Critical Illness Cover) and Family Income Benefit

There are two main types of term life cover policies - those which provide a lump sum should you die during a specified period of time (known as Term Assurance policies) or those which provide a series of cash sums should you die during a specified period of time (known as Family Income Benefit policies).

In either case, should you be fortunate enough to survive past the end of term of the term assurance or family income benfit plan then the policies will be exhausted and pay nothing and will not have a value.

The premiums you pay for term assurance plans can be guaranteed not to change during the full policy term or you can have reviewable cover. Reviewable plans may only be guaranteed for 5 or 10 years after which time premiums will be reviewed by the insurer and may well increase or the sum assured decrease.

With Term assurance, one may also select critical illness cover as an additional benefit - please see critical illness section for a rough guide.

Policies may be taken out on a single life, joint life first death basis. The maximum policy term for term assurance plans is to age 80 but different companies' terms vary and may be less.

Be aware that many policies are reviewable. This means that if the overall claims experience of a company over their bank of policyholders, are greater than expected they can increase the premiums across the board to all policyholders. This means that companies can try to buy business with low premiums, only to increase them in later years. Because of this hazard the cheapest reviewable quote may not prove to be such good value as a guaranteed quote.

The minimum premium you can pay is typically about - £5.00 per month.