Young Wrexham

Life Insurance

Life insurance (also known as life cover or life assurance) helps keep your family financially secure if you die. It covers your debts and outstanding payments so your dependants don't have to cover the cost themselves.

The cost of life insurance is based on a number of facts about you. The cost depends on your sex, your age, whether you are a smoker and whether you have medical conditions.

There are two main types of life insurance – term assurance and whole-of-life insurance.

Term Assurance

• This is a simple, cheap type of life insurance as it only covers a set period of time, such as 30 years
• If you die within this set period of time, your cover will pay out a fixed amount of money to your dependents
• If you survive beyond this set period of time then you will not receive a pay-out
• Often people take out term assurance to cover the time during their mortgage or until their children are grown up, so their children are not burdened with this if they should die

Whole-of-life insurance

• This covers you until your death and is a more expensive type of cover
• When you die, your dependants will receive a payout
• Most policies include a 'with-profits' clause which means your dependants will also receive a share of any profits made by the insurance company

Each policy varies so make sure you shop around for the best deal to suit you. Make sure you fully understand what your policy covers. Contact BIBA or the Money Advice Service for advice.

The Money Advice Service has an excellent section on debt managment including:

• Do you need life insurance?
• How and where to buy health insurance
• Life insurance - choose the right policy and cover

You can contact the Money Advice Service on 0300 500 5000 (or 0300 500 5555 for Welsh) Mon - Fri 8am-8pm, Sat 9am-1pm. There’s also an online chat function on their site.

You can contact Meic for free via online chat, text (84001) or phone (080880 23456).