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| Over 50s Life Insurance Vs Whole of Life Insurance |
From Axa Sun Life Direct and Michael Parkinson to LV and Julie Walters, you just can't avoid the adverts... over 50s life insurance is one of the fastest growing markets in the industry. Over 50s Life Insurance is essentially a whole of life insurance policy that will pay out a lump sum on death.
The big benefit of these plans is that they have no medical questions and offer guaranteed acceptance to any UK resident between the ages of 50 and 80 or 85. For those reasons they can be extremely beneficial to many concerned about how their loved ones may pay for their funeral when they are gone.
Some plans such as that offered by Engage Mutual ensures their customers stop paying their premiums once they reach the age of 90. Other plans however, will keep taking premiums no matter how old their customer lives to. This can have the effect meaning they will pay in a lot more than they will pay out. This is one crucial factor to consider before you buy an over 50s life insurance policy.
Because over 50s policies ask no medical questions, if you are in good health you are likely to be paying a lot more for your level of cover than what you need to. This means that the healthy customers are paying a premium for those not expected to live as long due to health problems.
An alternative option is taking a straight forward whole of life insurance policy.
In some cases a 50 year old female can get up to four times more cover than the popular Axa Sun Life plan. Based on prices quoted on Sun Life Direct's website in June 2012, a fifty year old non smoking female can get A�10,320 for A�25 with Axa Sun Life Direct. On the same date, PruProtect could offer the same customer A�41,410 for the same monthly premium. Alternatively they could pay just A�8 per month and be still get a pay out of over A�10,000 for their loved ones. Yes, Axa Sun Life offer a free TV but when you see these figures the true cost of the "free" gift becomes very evident.
There is no doubt over 50s policies can be extremely beneficial; they provide peace of mind for many and are quick and easy to set-up. More so than many other policies though, it is vitally important that you compare various over 50s plans before buying and if you feel you are in reasonable health and don't mind answering some medical questions then it is well worthwhile looking into whole of life insurance as well as an over 50s plan. That way you may find, you are actually more likely to get paid out more than what you pay in.