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Over 50 Thinking About Life Insurance? Here’s Your Real Options

Elaine Brookes Steve Case

Author: Steve Case - Insurance Expert

Reviewed & Fact Checked By: Elaine Brookes

Updated: 31st December 2023

When you’re aged over 50, it’s hard not to think about life insurance.

Chances are the thought has crossed your mind in the past six months. It’s the age group for the dominating life insurers to actively target their advertising towards, so every time you log into your social media accounts, there’s likely going to be some form of financially related product being advertised on your stream. It’s because even though the life expectancy in the UK for both males and females has risen, your presence in this world will come to an end someday, and it is crucial to protect your family’s future, and insurance companies know about it well.

The most pushed is the over 50s plan, but what you’re shown and what you buy is entirely on you. The lazy option is to go the easiest route and that is the over 50s plan. It’s made that way and marketed attractively because it is a guaranteed sum with no medical. Sounds great on the surface, but is it really? Well, if you’re in reasonably good health, it’s probably not.

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You could pay £15 per month for a guaranteed over 50s plan to get £4,000 in cover.

Unless you need that cover, such as being unable to pass the medical required for whole of life cover, it’s likely going to result in you losing money on what you could get on a different life insurance product.

Because if you don’t really need the guaranteed element with no medical if you are in good health, £15 a month cover on whole of life could get you a policy worth £10,000 and upwards.

Your options aren’t nearly as restricted as you may have been led to believe

Having any type of health condition does not discount you from getting life insurance of any type. It only affects the premiums you pay.

You may find yourself hindered because your line of work involves a dangerous career like scaffolding and working in all weathers, or having a heart condition, or being an ex-alcoholic or being one of the millions of Britons diagnosed with high cholesterol. Every insurer treats applicants as individuals, catering to multiple circumstances.

And it doesn’t cost you anything other than your time to find out if you would be accepted for any policy, with no obligation to take any policy out with any insurer.

Why wouldn’t you find out the facts before you commit to losing out on money that would go to your loved ones?

The difference between £4,000 and £10,000 is nothing to be sneezed at. What’s more, is that’s based on conservative figures. Guaranteed plans for over 50s can be upwards of £40 per month with some insurers, although that is mostly going to be for the older end of the age scale.

Doing the math to work out the potential total cost of a life insurance policy and your returns

A little math goes a long way toward making an informed financial choice for the benefit of your loved ones.

When you consider life insurance of any type, you want to estimate as best as possible, what you’ll pay in and weigh that against what the insurer will pay back to your family.

What you ought to consider is what age you expect to live to by taking into consideration your family history. What age did your parents pass? Were there specific medical conditions involved? If so, were those hereditary or lifestyle-related? And at what age did that happen? And are you proactively keeping yourself healthy by eating a healthy diet and sticking to a good exercise routine?

If you expect you’re going to live to the age of 85 and looking for insurance at 55 years old, that’s 30 years of cover you plan on paying for the policy.

30 years is 360 months, so any monthly premiums you’re quoted, multiply that by 360 and that’s the total cost of your policy if you do live for thirty years past the start date of the policy.

In practice, a quote may be £11.75 per month for £15,000 of cover. That would require a pay-in of £4,230. The return on investment would be £10,770. To save that amount up over thirty years, you’d need to save the equivalent of £29.92 per month.

You could either save £29.92 per month into a savings account or invest it somewhere so your family would receive £15,000, or find a life insurance policy that costs you less than £29.92 monthly for the same or higher amount of cover.

Depending on your current health status, you could find that a monthly premium around the £30 per month ballpoint would return much higher than £15,000, much, much higher.

For some reason, one of the questions consumers ask about life insurance is how much it costs for £100,000 cover? Our research showed that Brits highly overestimated the costs of life insurance, thinking that a £100,000 policy would cost £51 per month.

The average cost is actually £10.31, so what consumers think that a £51 monthly premium would buy on life insurance would actually buy you five times more, for example, someone who is a non-smoker, and in good health could get as high as a £500,000 policy, for that premium.

In Conclusion:

Guaranteed over 50s plans are really suited to those who need the guaranteed element. The only way to know for sure that you do actually need that guarantee is to first find out if you’d be able to pass the medical requirements for a whole of life or term life insurance. It costs nothing to find out, but it will cost in the long run if you don’t do some research.

Or let us do the fact-finding for you.

… We’ll compare the whole of the market, doing all the essential research required to provide you with the full facts that you need to make an informed financial decision based on your own personal circumstances. No restrictions, no obligation, and no up-front fees to pay.

Moreover, impartial advice is always provided and your questions welcomed. If you’re considering any life insurance products, our expert advisors are on hand to provide their expert advice to you and there’s no charge to you for that either.

Related Reading:

Life Insurance Over 50 Quotes: A Guide

The State Of Over Fifties Life Insurance Cover

Over 50s Cover Vs Income Protection: Some Food for Thought