Life Insurance

What types of life insurance or life assurance are available?

There are many different types of life insurance, or life assurance, cover. It's available on a single or joint basis, and has no value if the policyholder is alive when the policy expires or if the policyholder stops paying premiums at ant time.

The main types of life insurance are as follows:

Level term insurance
This is where a guaranteed and unchanged sum is paid out if the policyholder should die during the policy’s term.

Decreasing term insurance
This is where the sum paid out decreases during the policy. It is often used to protect capital and repayments on a mortgage, hence it's alterative name 'mortgage life assurance'.

Increasing term insurance
This form of insurance offers an increasing sum to counteract the negative effect inflation has on the value of money each year.

Convertible term insurance
This is essentially level term insurance with the option to switch to whole life or endowment life insurance.

Renewable term insurance
This offers an option to continue without a health review when the policy expires.

Whole of life insurance

More UK financial questions

Do I really need life insurance or is it another unnecessary monthly expense?

How do I find cheap life cover and will it be the same as more expensive policies?

What exactly is critical illness cover and what types of illness does it provide protection against?

And finally, what factors determine the cost of cover I am quoted?