The funeral was on Friday 27 March, in Chesterfield, for the dad of a friend I've known since school. He was 58 and had died on a Tuesday earlier in the month with no warning at all. Somewhere on the road back to Sheffield, Matt turned the radio off and said we should sort the life insurance.
Our broker had mentioned it back in 2024, at the mortgage stage, and we'd nodded and moved on because we had a survey to argue about. Nearly two years later, with £168,750 borrowed and a joint account, it didn't feel like something to nod at. I'm not qualified to tell anyone what to buy, so this is only what we did and what our adviser explained to us.
What we looked at
The first choice was between level and decreasing term cover. Level pays the same amount whenever you die during the term. Decreasing falls year by year, roughly in step with a repayment mortgage, and costs less. Ours is a repayment mortgage over 30 years, so the adviser said decreasing was the usual fit. We set the term to end when the mortgage does, in early 2055, and the cover started at about £166,000, which is roughly what we owe.
The second was one joint policy or two single ones. A joint policy normally pays out once, on the first death, and then ends, leaving the other person with nothing for the rest of the term. Two single policies cost a little more together, but each pays out on its own death, and each covers the whole mortgage. We went with two. Mine is £14.20 a month and Matt's is £16.80. He's a year and a half older and the price knows it.
What we left out
Critical illness cover pays a lump sum if you're diagnosed with one of a list of conditions. The adviser priced it for both of us at about £41 a month on top. We went through what we already have. We both get death-in-service through work, which pays a multiple of salary, and both of us have sick pay that runs for several months before it drops. That's not nothing, and £41 on top of £31 felt like a lot beside saving for a kitchen. We left it out for now and agreed to look again if either job changes. We read the small print on which conditions count, and if you're weighing it up, your own adviser is the person to ask. The trade-off suited us.
The call, and the trust
The application was a phone call of 47 minutes, most of it health and lifestyle questions: height, weight, drinking, smoking, family history. Twenty minutes of it was about my drinking, which is mostly tea. Cover began on Tuesday 14 April once the insurer accepted us, and the paperwork arrived in the post on 2 May.
The adviser also suggested writing each policy in trust, which means naming who gets the money when it's paid out, so that it goes straight to that person and doesn't wait in the estate. It took one form per policy and about ten minutes each, with no extra charge. Whether it makes sense for you is a question for your own adviser or solicitor, but he was firm that it made sense for how we own the house. We named each other and sent the forms back on 4 May.
If I did it again, I'd start in 2024, when the broker first said it. We'd have been covered through the best part of two years when we weren't, and the premiums would have been a pound or two lower a month, being that much younger. It took a funeral to make us do it, and I'd rather it hadn't.
The policy documents are in the filing box marked "House", behind the boiler service book. I told Matt that on Sunday and made him say it back.
