Life insurance

Making a claim
For information on making a claim visit our making a claim section.

Whole-of-life insurance
This covers you for the whole of your life. Unlike term insurance, which only pays out if you die during the policy term, whole-of-life insurance always pays out in the end. It is guaranteed that the policy will pay out upon your death.

Key pros and cons of whole-of-life insurance

Pros

• Whole-of-life insurance always pays out in the end, so you'll always get some money
• It could be worth thinking about if you want to leave your loved ones a nest egg
• You can combine it with term insurance if you want to cover any specific debts

Cons

• It's more expensive than term insurance.

Making a claim
For information on making a claim visit our making a claim section.

Endowment policies
An endowment policy is often used to pay off an interest-only mortgage. There's two parts to it - an investment part and a life cover part - and it lasts for a set time. If you die during the policy, it covers your mortgage debt.

If you live until the policy ends, the investment part should give you enough to repay your mortgage, but this is not guaranteed.

Key pros and cons of endowment policies

Pros

• If the endowment policy performs well, it could give you enough to pay off your mortgage and give you a nest egg

Cons

• If the endowment policy does not perform well it could leave you with insufficient money to repay your mortgage at the end of the term

If you do have an endowment policy, remember it only repays the sum assured if you die (which is usually the mortgage amount), so you may want to buy extra life cover to provide for other debts. Also remember that, when the endowment policy finishes, so does your life insurance cover. In recent years endowment policies have received a bad press, as some people have found their policies are not on track to make enough to pay off their full mortgage debt.