At Smart Insurance, we know life insurance can be tricky. That’s why we aim to offer straightforward and affordable cover to help protect the life you’ve built. Below, we’ll walk you through how to how to get started. With some of the key concerns in your back pocket, you can get personalised cover that’s tailored for you and your loved ones.
Why do you need life insurance?
It may sound obvious, but it’s vital to know beforehand. Maybe you simply need to cover the cost of a funeral, or perhaps you’d like to have something in place to look after the kids’ education expenses. Whatever the reason, it’s important to make sure your benefit amount is enough to take care of it. With the right idea in mind, we can find cover that suits you and your family’s needs.
Choosing your benefit amount
Your first step is the most important one - choosing how much the policy will pay. This is what we call the ‘benefit amount’.
Generally, the greater the amount you’re looking for, the more you will pay in premiums.
When choosing your amount, here are the main things to take note of:
Your Age
There’s not much we can do to impact how old we are, but it’s still a major thing to consider when choosing your benefit amount. If for example you’d like to choose £20,000 as your benefit amount, this may look after things you need taken care of today, but it may not have the same purchasing power in 10 years’ time.
Financial Needs
Think about things like outstanding debts, mortgage repayments, bills, loans and credit cards. Your benefit amount should be enough to cover these things to make sure your loved ones aren’t burdened during an already difficult time.
Your Household Income
Consider how much your salary is and other sources of income. When choosing your benefit amount, you may wish to replace your income for a certain number of years so your family can keep their standard of living.
School costs, food shopping and other expenses
It’s normal to only think about the big things when looking to take care of expenses, but it’s important to remember the day-to-day too. If you have children, you may even want to leave behind something extra to ensure their future education expenses are already factored in.
Savings or existing cover you may have
Take stock of any savings or retirement funds you may have. You might even be one of those lucky people who already have some existing cover in place. While you shouldn’t solely rely on these assets for protection, these are still things that can help reduce the cost of your monthly premium.
Will your health affect your premiums?
Many people worry about how expensive their life insurance might get if they’re not entirely sure about their health. This is a perfectly natural thing to consider and unfortunately, it is the reality with some types of policies and providers.
With Smart Life Insurance, you always have choices that can work for you. When taking out a Smart Family Life Insurance policy, we may ask you a few questions about your health and lifestyle, but you will have no blood tests or medical exams to worry about. Better still, once your policy is in place, you and your family can enjoy free access to health and wellbeing services1 as part of your cover. This access is available to you, your partner, and any children you have up until the age of 21. These services can help keep your family happy and healthy, and to be ready for any curve ball that life throws at you.
Choose the length of your policy
As we said earlier, your current age will have the biggest impact on how much you’ll be paying. For this reason, the type of policy you may need will change depending on what stage you’re at in life. Don’t worry, as there are always options no matter your age.
With a Smart Family Life Insurance policy, you can choose either an aged-based, or a level policy.
Simply put, an aged-based policy will mean you’re covered for the rest of your life. This is a type of increasing life insurance where your monthly premium is recalculated every year based on your age and any benefit amount increases. If for example, you’re a 32-year-old non-smoker, this could be a great option for you, with a benefit amount of £100,000 for just £6.89 a month in the first year2.
With a level-policy, you can choose the length of time you’d like your cover to be for. You have a choice of a fixed term from 10 to 40 years, after which your cover will come to an end. This can be the ideal choice for those who’d like to know exactly how much they’ll need to pay now and in the future.
Add-ons to suit your needs
We always want to provide options for our customers to personalise their protection. For Smart Family Life Insurance customers, you can choose to include optional extra protection for even greater peace of mind. Children’s Cover and Critical Illness Cover are available to offer you and your family some relief when accidents and illnesses happen. It’s another choice available to you when calculating your cover and may be worth keeping in mind.
Speak with our team of specialists
It can be stressful to make sure such an important decision is calculated correctly, but that’s what we’re here for. With a grasp of what you need insurance for and how much cover you think you may need you may need, that’s half the battle fought. From there, your needed policy type becomes much clearer once health, policy length and personalised add-ons are considered.
With all the above information in place, you’ll be in a fantastic position to speak to our award-winning team of UK based life insurance specialists, who’ll be happy to answer any questions you may have.
If you’re still unsure of anything, make sure to give us a call on , where our team can get you a free quote in minutes with no obligation to buy. We're open Monday to Friday from 8am to 8pm, Saturday from 9am to 6pm, and Sunday from 9am to 5pm (excluding bank holidays).
