Common Life Insurance Quotation mistakes, how we can avoid from life insurance mistakes?
I'm fiaz tariq free
insurance advisor today I will be explaining some of the most common mistakes
that people make when arranging their life insurance policies and I’m telling
you this so that you can avoid making the same mistakes so stay tuned to hear
more so before we get into today's article I want to let you know that here at fiaz tariq we specialize in helping people to arrange life insurance we
deal with lots of different insurance companies from the likes of aviva and
legal in general companies that you'd be familiar with to more specialist
insurers and the best part of all is that our insurance review service is
completely free of charge so whether you're setting up a new insurance policy
or you want to review an existing one yes you heard me a completely free
service and arguably life insurance is one of the most important purchases that
you will make it's complicated so you want to make sure that you get it right
so it's worth using the help of an expert and getting in touch with us today
what's better is that when we arrange any insurance policies we also provide a
free will writing service at
insurance advisor
so what are you waiting for make
sure that you get in touch if you do need to arrange cover. mortgage
or give us a call drop us an email and we will be happy to help you get
something sorted but first of all I just want to start by looking at what life
insurance actually is and then we'll look at some of the more common mistakes
so let's start by just looking at a really brief summary on what life insurance
is so life insurance is going to provide a lump sum of money or monthly income
to your beneficiaries your beneficiaries usually being family members people
that are financially dependent on you and that lump sum or income is designed
to help them to continue the lifestyle that they are accustomed to in the event
that you have passed away and it can help to pay off things like debts whatever
you choose to do with that payout or your family would choose to do with that
payout then that's entirely up to them but ultimately it provides financial
support to your family or beneficiaries in the event that you die so the first
mistake that people commonly make is choosing a low start or a reviewable
option so what is a low start or reviewable option let's start by looking at
low start to begin with now a low start option means that the cover starts low
in price and then usually creeps up and those increases are linked to it could
be age or it could be just set by the insurer but ultimately the premiums will
creep up and get more expensive okay now low start is not necessarily always a
mistake if you know it's a low start option and there's a reason you've chosen
a low start option so a good reason could be perhaps you are in a junior
position at work and you know that your salary will increase in future years or
something in your circumstances is going to change that's going to mean that
you can deal with those cost increases then a low start option can be
advantageous for many people but quite often i meet people that set policies up
without knowing that it's a low start option and that's problematic because in
future years when it gets more expensive and it potentially gets un affordable
you might end up cancelling the cover at a time when you need it most now the
next common mistake that people make is choosing the wrong type of cover now
life cover can take on many different forms it can come as mortgage protection
family protection term assurance whole of life there are so many different
options but ultimately the product should be matched with the problem what i
mean by that is if for example on your death there will be a shortfall to repay
in the mortgage then mortgage protection is designed to repay your mortgage in
the event of your death so ideally the term of the cover and the amount of the
cover would usually match the mortgage you would not take out generally
speaking a whole of life policy to cover a mortgage because a whole of life has
an indefinite end date it pays out when you die so the two are not really
matched for the same purpose if you see what i mean now the term of a policy
should always be considered so again if you're looking at family protection so
family protection is still life cover it's just that it's designed to cover
your family as opposed to a mortgage debt but ultimately again things that need
to be considered are things like the age that your children might become
financially independent your retirement age these are all factors that would go
into choosing the most appropriate term and the reason why choosing the right
type of cover is so important is because you don't want to over insure yourself
or under insurance yourself and everybody's circumstances are different so matching
the product to the problem depends on your individual circumstances and that's
why it should always get advice from an expert so please do get in touch and we
can have these conversations with you to make sure that you are choosing the
right type of cover the next common mistake is when people go directly through
a bank to arrange their insurance policy or directly to one insurance company
and the reason that this can be a mistake is because the companies vary in many
different ways so let me just give you a few examples they vary in terms of
their payout rates the quality of cover that they offer in terms of some life
insurance policies will give you added health care benefits for free some might
give you the option to add your children some might provide added benefits such
as cancer cover or give you a second medical opinion if you got sick the costs
can vary or the quality of the cover can vary massively so again when you're
only going to one option then you may be missing out on some really good
options that are available now not only that but the cost can vary considerably
as well so if you go to a bank to set up your life insurance policy banks quite
often do something called load their premiums so what i mean by that is that
they get a price from the insurer and then they will add on potentially an
extra 10 or 15 20 onto that monthly premium because a bank usually has many
overheads they've got lots of different costs so generally speaking you
wouldn't get the most competitive rate when you go through a bank and obviously
that's not ideal now another reason why going direct is not ideal is because
every company treats medical history and lifestyle very differently so for
example some companies if you are using electronic cigarettes some might
consider you a smoker some might not if it's not nicotine based electronic
cigarette even things like medical history so if you've got a family member
with that's had bowel cancer in the past every company would price the policy
differently according to that if you have a high body mass index every company
would have a different outcome in terms of pricing potentially so the reason
why it's so important to look at lots of different options is because you would
have a different outcome in many different circumstances and as a company we
specialize in comparing lots of different companies hundreds of different
options and we also have the ability to speak to the medical professionals at
these insurance companies to research your situation before you make an
application so that just means that we know before you even submit anything
which companies likely to give you the best terms which cuts out a lot of time
and hassle so that's certainly something that we can help with now the next
common mistake that i see people make is that they procrastinate and postpone
taking the policy out now let's be honest when you take out life insurance you
hope that you never have to use it but if you do or if your family do it's
arguably one of the most valuable purchases that you will ever make now quite
often i hear people say well my circumstances are going to change in three four
five years so I’m just going to postpone taking it out and look at it in the
future or in some cases they make an application but the terms of the policy
because of medical history are not perhaps quite as favorable as they might
have hoped so they will say oh well you know when i change that particular
thing so for example a smoker yes they're going to get charged more for their
insurance and people might say when i stop smoking i'll look at it then now the
issue with that is that as you get older the cost of life insurance is going to
increase not to mention if your health changes then the same options that are
available to you today may not be available if and when your health changes you
may not even be able to get cover for certain medical conditions and if you can
then the cost might come at a higher cost so there are no advantages to
postponing taking out life cover if your circumstances are due to change or as
i mentioned if you're a smoker so you're going to pay a little bit more in the
short term but you're thinking of giving up in future years then the point of
life insurance is that you should review it at the time when your circumstances
change certainly where we set up a policy there are no cost implications to
reviewing and changing the policy in future years so there is absolutely no
benefit to postponing taking it out the way that i look at it is that having
some cover in the short term is always better than none and like i said you can
add to it or change it in future years the next common mistake i want to talk
about is that people quite often use comparison websites and just pick the
cheapest option blindly trusting the comparison website now when you do this i
understand that when you set up life insurance having a competitively priced
policy is important but it should not be the only determining factor that goes
into why you've chosen that policy what other research went into it now if you
pick the cheapest option then you may want to ask further questions or think
about some of the following things what payout rates does the company have is
it a low start option as i mentioned earlier on in the article are there
exclusions so some policies might only cover you if it's an accidental death
you know you need to be looking into these things and as well what added
healthcare benefits come with the policy so quite often for an extra few pence
maybe pounds you can add things like healthcare benefits children's cover
online gp services so many fantastic options for a very small price difference
but as well if you're not aware of these things then you wouldn't know to do it
now is the insurance company as well aware of all of the material facts that
they're basing the pricing on so going back to my earlier point an insurance
company is going to price the policy according to your health lifestyle amongst
other factors family history etc so just because you've seen on a comparison
website that the price is x when the insurance company digs deeper that price
can change and like i mentioned to you earlier on us being experts we would
research all of this before you make any applications so that you don't get any
nasty surprises and it's really really important so the point I'm making is
that so much research should go into making sure that that policy is right for
you and making sure that it's got the best value for money and quite often when
you just go straight away to the cheapest option you'll find that that's not
the case now the next common mistake that i see people make is that they
compare the type of cover that they have or the cost of the cover with that of
their family and or friends now this can be a mistake because the price that
you pay for your cover is individual it's going to be based on your age your
health whether you smoke the amount of cover that you have the term of the
cover the type of the cover amongst other things pricing is so individual that it's
impossible to compare what you have with somebody else also as well you know
everyone's circumstances are different so for example if you've got two people
one earns a hundred thousand pounds a year one earns twenty thousand pounds a
year the loss if one of the two of them were to pass away would be very
different so they would be looking at different levels of cover it's a
different scenario let's say that you have a mortgage debt of five hundred
thousand pounds and your friend has a mortgage debt of two hundred thousand
pounds you're going to need different options and levels of cover so it's very
difficult to make comparisons between people's insurance options now also what
you pay is down to your attitude to risk ultimately and only you can be comfortable
with that your friends and family ultimately are not going to be the people
dealing with the situation if your spouse passes away it's not them that's
going to be left with the mortgage debt it's you so you ultimately have to be
comfortable with the peace of mind that you have and the cost of the cover that
you're paying because it's you potentially and your family that are going to be
dealing with the impact of something happening so you need to decide the peace
of mind and how much you pay for that peace of mind the next mistake that we'll
look at is when people do not consider putting their life insurance policies
into trust now I'll start by very briefly explaining what that even means if
you are putting your policy into trust a very short brief summary it means that
the proceeds under that life insurance policy will pay directly to your
beneficiaries so that could be family children or spouse for example instead of
to your legal estate therefore there are many benefits that come with that the
policy wouldn't be taken into account for inheritance tax calculation purposes
so there's potential huge tax savings inheritance taxes charged at 40 so you
could be talking thousands of pounds saved there but it also means that your
beneficiaries receive the money much quicker so usually where a policy's under
trust it pays out within days rather than again having to wait months for
what's called probate to be resolved and it's usually much quicker irrespective
of whether you have a will in place or not even with a will sorting out one's
estate usually takes many months so it's just making sure that your family get
the money as quickly as possible now what one of the other benefits is that it
also means that you decide who receives the payout which is particularly
important if you don't have a will so for example if you're an unmarried couple
and you set up a life insurance policy um if you're not married then there is
nothing setting the law to say that your partner would inherit the proceeds
from that policy so you might find if you die without your policy being in
either trust or or you haven't got a will that the proceeds of that policy end
up in somebody else's hands that you might not have wanted to so it's so
important to make sure that the policy proceeds pay out to who you want them to
pay to now there are other benefits to having a policy under trust that i won't
go into because I'm conscious that we've only got a short space of time in this
article and trusts are very complicated as well but ultimately they require
specialist knowledge there are many benefits to a policy being in trust and we
provide free advice and arrange policies in trust completely free so really do
make sure that you get in touch if you're about to set up cover or you've
already got a policy that's not in trust and we can help you sort that out now
the next mistake that i see people about to make or have made it setting up a
previous policy is that they've not shared all of their medical history now I've got two words for this one just don't it's just not worth it life
insurance companies if you are not honest open and accurate with the
information you give them they can reduce the amount that they pay out in the
event of a claim or in some worst case scenarios they may reject a claim completely
now when you do make a claim they will request your medical records and if what
you told them application contradicts what is in your medical records then
that's when you have the potential for a problem to arise also when you're
making an application do not assume and expect that they will ask your doctor
about the information you've given them at the point of application quite often
depending on what you disclose when you apply they are just taking your word
for it so these problems may not surface like i say until you actually make a
claim so it's just not worth it you know you're paying this money for a policy
you want it to be there when you need it or when your family need it so it's
just really important to be honest open and accurate with all of the
information that you are asked so those are all of the most common mistakes
that i see people making or have made when they're setting up their life
insurance policy and i hope that articles really helped you to avoid making the
same mistakes now ultimately with your life insurance it should be there when
you need it most and these mistakes that potentially people make usually
resurface at the time when them or their family needs to make a claim and
that's why you want to avoid them at all costs so to help you we as the experts
are here to help we have so many years of experience of dealing with life
insurance policies we have the knowledge to compare the options with you and
give you expert advice to suit your individual circumstances so make sure that
you head over to our website give us a call or drop us an email so that we can
help you to arrange your policy or review an existing one completely free to
arrange cover with us and with every policy that we arrange we can put them
into trust and provide a free will writing service through comments so
look forward to hearing from you I hope that article has been useful subscribe
if it was and I'll see you in my next article you
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