Swings and roundabouts – the challenges of protecting your family
While preparing for raising a family, unpredictable happenings are often overlooked
As you leave the maternity ward knowing that a tiny baby is totally reliant on your care and attention, the life-changing experience of parenthood starts to kick in. Too often, it takes those turning points to remind us of how valuable being present really is. That’s why life insurance for new parents and other types of financial protection can be so important, especially with the power of hindsight.
Tragic events can happen at the most unexpected times. And while nothing can make up for losing a loved one, the money from life insurance can at least help remove financial worry at a difficult time.
The cost of life insurance is usually lower if you take out the policy sooner than later. We offer our customers several options to protect their families, including:
Level life cover is where you choose how much your family might receive and how long you want to be covered for. So, if you asked for £250,000 over a 30-year policy, we'd pay this out if you die at any point during those 30 years. There's also the option to help protect the payout from inflation. To explore your cover needs further, you can use our cover calculator.
Decreasing life cover is a popular option with homeowners, offering a way to help cover a mortgage or other outstanding loans if you pass away during the policy term. This cover reduces over time, roughly in line with your repayment mortgage, so it usually costs less than level life cover. Figure out how much life insurance you might need with our calculator.
With both options described above, there’s no cash-in value. Your cover will end if you stop your monthly payments.
Find out more about our life insurance.
Free parent cover can be thought of as baby steps while considering long-term life insurance options. This policy provides a £15,000 death benefit, free of charge, if a parent dies within twelve months of the policy start date. Parents can take out a policy for any of their children under four years old. So consider it a supportive form of life insurance for new parents.
Read more on our free parent life cover.
Income protection cover pays you a proportion of your income every month if you’re unable work due to an injury or illness. It’s up to you to decide how long to wait until payments begin, and the longer you delay, the less it costs you. This gives you some security that your monthly outgoings are covered so you can focus on getting better.
Read more about our income protection cover.
Critical illness cover offers a one-off cash payment if you're diagnosed with one of 52 life-changing impacts on your health that meet our policy conditions. It's important to note that this isn’t a death benefit, so you won't be covered if you don't survive ten days following a diagnosis. Additionally, you need to know that there is no cash-in value, and you need to make payments every month to be covered
Children's critical illness and death benefit
Children over 30 days of age up to the age of eighteen are also covered under our critical illness policy (or 21 if they're in full-time education). If your child is diagnosed with an illness that meets our definitions, we'll pay either £25,000 or 50% of the cover amount (whichever is lower). This covers one claim per child.
Children's death benefit pays a lump sum of £5,000 per child.
Read more about our critical illness cover.
Next article
What is mortgage protection life insurance?
Mortgage protection insurance is a type of term life insurance. Find out more about how mortgage protection insurance works, and how it can help you here.
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