Whole of Life Insurance

These policies are designed to provide protection throughout your life.

The options with Whole of Life policies are:

Standard cover

This provides a sum assured from a premium that remains the same throughout life.

Maximum cover

This provides the highest initial sum assured. The sum assured is guaranteed until the first plan review (usually in ten years). At that point, either the sum assured will reduce significantly or, if you wish to maintain the same level of cover, the premium will increase significantly to take into account your current age. No further medical evidence will be required unless you increase the level of cover.

Intermediate cover

This allows you to structure your policy so that the contribution level lies between the lifetime and maximum cover. Once again, the sum assured will be reviewed at the first plan review. No further medical evidence will be required unless you increase the cover.

Indexing your contributions will reduce or eliminate the fall in sum assured or subsequent increase in premium.

A proportion of each contribution you pay, less any service fee, is invested in a fund, or funds, of your choice. Each month a deduction is made from the units to pay for life cover and, if selected, critical illness cover. This fund is then used by the insurer to suppress future increases in premium. The higher the level of cover selected, the less will be invested in your fund.

Due mainly to the fact that the cover runs to an indefinite period you will find that whole of life insurance is quite a bit more expensive than than a comparable term assurance plan that only runs for a limited period. A lot of whole of life insurance plans, though not all, also build up a nominal cash value this is mainly designed to cover the changing cost of mortality rates however is available to take as a cash in value if the plan is no longer needed in the future.

Like all types of life insurance you can also have additional benefits such as critical illness and waiver of premium benefit.