Life Insurance for over 50s

Life Insurance for over 50s with companies such as Sun Life Direct over 50 plan and Legal and General over 50s life insurance plan and Engage Mutual Insurance all aimed at looking after those aged 50 years and above. With Sun Life Direct there is guaranteed acceptance for all UK residents over the age of 50 years and there are no medical questions or any medical required. Also so long as you have paid your premiums for at least 2 years, you will get a fixed cash sum to leave to loved ones should you pass away in that time. Life Insurance with Sun Life Direct over 50 plan starts from just £6.00 a month. Asda life insurance is offering the over 50s £30 shopping vouchers and Virgin life insurance is offering £50 in shopping vouchers. Fewer Britons took out life insurance last year as claims also fell, according to the Association of British Insurer's latest UK Insurance - Key Facts. Premiums for life and pensions were £110 billion in 2010, a 7% decrease from 2009. Pension premiums were down 8% while life fell 1%. And payouts on life and pensions policies also fell last year, falling 1% to £151 billion. Insurers paid out around £53.6 billion - the equivalent of £147 million a day - to those with maturing pension plans or with long-term life insurance savings policies or bonds. They also paid out around £6.2 billion - or £17 million each day - for death and disability under life and critical illness policies. And there was a lot of money being shifted around between pension providers, with £91 billion swapping between different insurers and pension fund managers. More than three-quarters of life and pension policies sold in 2010 were sold by independent financial advisers, with 13% sold through advisers who can only sell one or a limited number of companies' plans. Around 11% of policies were sold without advice. The ABI says that around 8.5 million British households have life and pension policies. There are around 29.6 million life and critical illness policies in force - including basic term and the more complicated whole of life plans. Consumers get benefits worth around £32.7million a day from these, the ABI says. There are also around 10.3 million endowment and investment bonds still in force and these produce benefits of £63.9 million a day for their holders. Original Source Comment Fewer Brits are taking out over 50 life insurance. We don't really know why but one can assume that the credit crunch has something to do with it. People assume that over 50 life insurance cover is going to be expensive but most companies such as Virgin and Sun Life Direct offer this for around £5-6 per month. Some of the companies are also offering you incentives to join their policies. Virgin are offering £50 in shopping vouchers for new clients. So shop around if you are thinking of taking out over 50 life insurance and get the cheapest policy but one that offers you a little thank you too..... Written by John P. Napolitano business columnist for Patriot Ledger. When I hear people refer to life insurance as a bet against themselves, I just cringe. The truth is that life insurance is a bet in favor of your family, one that may help them get through some challenging times after the death of a loved one. Think of a properly structured and funded life insurance policy as an investment that will someday pay a benefit to your beneficiaries. One of the most important criteria in evaluating a life insurance policy would be the internal rate of return on a death benefit. That's the annual rate of return you are expected to earn for your heirs because of the continued premium payments and the ultimate death benefit that gets paid out. If one dies sooner into the contract, the internal rate of return is quite high. If one lives to life expectancy, many companies are currently illustrating about a 4 to 5 percent IRR on a death benefit. For those who live well past age 90, that IRR may drop to produce a 2 to 4 percent IRR on a death benefit. Given today's low interest rate environment, even the most pessimistic life insurance pundit may agree that the IRR forecast is fairly attractive. It looks even more attractive when you consider that these proceeds are received income-tax free, and if structured properly, can also avoid all death and transfer taxes. The risk of a life insurance policy not meeting expectations lies in the assumptions that insurers make. They assume an ongoing rate of return for the premium dollars that they receive. Typically premium dollars are invested in very secure fixed-income vehicles, and are not earning too much in today's market. They forecast an interest rate that will be credited to any cash value accumulated in the contract.  If rates do not go up in the next few years, insurers may face another challenge if getting a higher yield on their conservative holdings is not possible. Some companies build anticipated dividends, which are essentially anticipated refunds of premiums, into the forecasts. These dividend scales have been under pressure during this low interest rate cycle. The last assumption is the mortality costs of the insurer. Some contracts come with a fixed mortality charge; these are the most costly in the early years. Other contracts continue to raise the mortality costs each year and then have a cushion built into the contract allowing them to increase. Original Source I think the point here is that if you want some peace of mind then taking out over 50 life insurance is a small price to pay per month for the return that you may receive if you die sooner rather than later. You know that there will be money to pay for your funeral, or there will be money for your children to pay off some of their own debts and as a parent this is worth the average price of £5.50 a month for over 50 life insurance.