20 ways to reduce your life insurance premiums

20 ways to reduce your life insurance premiums 2024
People use life insurance to make sure their families or dependents will receive cash benefits if they are no longer there. However, some people are having to pay more than others for the same amount of coverage. Below are some practical steps and actions that help reduce life insurance payments.
1. Quit smoking and vaping – 20% of people in the UK smoke. Quitting smoking is a great way of reducing your premiums as they can go down by up to 50%. However, be aware these changes won't happen overnight. That's because insurance companies will require you to not smoke for a minimum of 12 months to qualify as a non-smoker for lowering your premiums.
If you do quit smoking, don't forget to tell your insurer about it - 51% of smokers who quit forget to do so thus missing out on lower premiums available!
2. Get life insurance at a young age - insurers love statistics and statistics suggests the younger you are the less risky you are for them. This translates into lower insurance premiums for you!
3. Stay fit and healthy - not only this is good for you, it is also good for your wallet. Insurers ask much lower premiums if you are healthy. So make sure to eat healthily, exercise often, get enough sleep, and enjoy wholesome relationships.
4. Lead less dangerous lifestyle – hazardous activities and pursuits such as sky diving or working with explosives inevitably mean higher life insurance premiums.
Have a think if this is what you want to do for the rest of your life? It might help you in lowering your premiums.
5. Use a professional life insurance expert - such experts are just a quick form away and available via WeCovr. They will do all the paperwork for you and search the market for the best plans matching your needs.
6. Watch your BMI (Body Mass Index) - as an indicator of a person's health, insurers look at their BMI. It is a simple formula which requires your height and weight.
The formula is BMI = kg/m2 where kg is a person's weight in kilograms and m2 is their height in metres squared. A BMI reading of 25.0 or more means overweight, while the healthy range is 18.5 to 24.9.
7. Let experts shop around for you - fill in a quick form on the button below to get our insurance experts do the legwork for you and compare multiple life insurance policies that fit you best.
8. Honesty is the best policy - it might be tempting to claim you don’t smoke when you do or lie about your medical condition, as you think it will reduce your premiums.
However, this could be a false economy in the long run because your insurer might not payout in the end if they find out you were less than honest when getting the cover.
9. Do checkups if you have medical conditions - this may help you get better premiums in case your medical situation improves thanks to a healthier lifestyle or diet for example.
Should your health parameters become healthier, you may request a more competitive quote either from your existing or other insurers. Again, WeCovr's experts would be happy to shop around for best available plans for you at no cost.
10. Consider having multiple policies - your choice of life insurers gets more restricted and premiums rise as you age and/or get any health issues. So if you took a policy when you were younger or healthier, don't cancel it. If you'd like to top it up, you could keep your existing cover and take out a new policy in addition. This will mean lower overall premiums.
11. Write your policy in trust - even though life insurance payouts aren’t subject to income or capital gains taxes, they might be liable for inheritance tax if your net assets including life cover payout exceed a certain threshold.
By putting your life insurance policy into a trust, you take it outside of your assets and thus make it tax-free. This can help you lower your premiums should you wish so or you might want to keep them at the same level, but leave your loved ones a larger tax-free sum of money.
12. Make a plan or a will - having a plan or a will in place helps you understand how much you have in assets and what you intend to do with them. As a result, you can plan for inheritance tax payments your loved ones might have to pay and adjust your sum assured accordingly.
13. See which extras you require - there are various extra features in many, including a waiver of premium, bereavement counselling or some others. If they come for free, that's great, keep them. If they cost extra, you may want to consider whether you really need to keep them.
14. Reviewable vs guaranteed premiums - watch out if you're offered cheaper reviewable premiums. Those tend to be cheaper initially, but can go up later to account for your age and state of health. Guaranteed premiums stay the same over the entire length of the policy so could be cheaper for you in the long run.
15. Choose a policy that better fits your needs - whole of life insurance covers you for your whole life which makes it more expensive because it is guaranteed to pay out at some point. At the same time, term insurance can be a cheaper and the most common type of life cover.
Term policies cover you for just the duration of your policy – for example, 20 years that you have left on your mortgage.
16. Consider single policies rather than a joint policy - a joint life insurance policy pays out on the first death if this occurs within the term of the policy. This can be seen by insurers as likelier than two single life insurance policies and therefore more expensive on the same value basis.
Separate policies are also easier to deal with, should a couple separate at some point.
17. Reduce the term of the life insurance policy - policies get more expensive with longer terms. If you only need life cover for your mortgage, you might want to consider just insuring for the remainder of its term or just while your children are young. This will help lower your premiums down.
18. Check your employee benefits - if your company offers life insurance cover as part of your benefits package, it may be for a significant amount of a multiple of your annual salary. As a result, your additional life cover requirement might be less and therefore premiums you pay for the balance.
Be careful though - should you leave your current employment, your life cover available from them will stop and your overall coverage may shrink significantly.
19. If self-employed, explore tax deductibility – life insurance can be structured in different ways for business people, often taking advantage of tax deductibility for business purposes.
Check with professional insurance experts at WeCovr. They will assist you with what might be a more tax-effective option for you to help reduce premiums.
20. NEVER reduce cover just for the sake of lower premiums - living life without or with little life insurance is like betting your loved ones won't need any help should you pass away. Make sure your policy provides enough cover for your loved ones, so they have the financial security and confidence when you're not around.
As covid has shown, life events can quickly change for the worse. Don't be penny wise, pound foolish - let a life insurance company take that bet for your loved ones in exchange for an affordable premium.
Before purchasing your or your family member's life insurance, it is always recommended to consult with life insurance experts. Our FCA-authorised and experienced insurance partners can help guide you in a friendly and free phone consultation.
Why not let experts do the hard work and analysis for you? At no cost, they can find you those life insurance plans that can be most suitable to your particular circumstances as well as help deal with all the necessary paperwork!

It takes less than 30 seconds to set up a free phone consultation with them to check how different plans from various insurance companies compare against each other and fit you best. Just fill in a quick quote form on the button below and get a free, no-obligation quote from FCA-authorised life insurance experts!

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One of the most effective ways to protect family's finances

Many UK families still don’t realise that life, income protection and critical illness insurance is one of the most effective and efficient ways to protect their family's finances

Benefits offered by income protection, life and critical illness insurance

Life insurance, income protection and critical illness insurance are indispensable for every family because a child loses a parent every 22 minutes in the UK, while every single day tragically 60 people suffer major injuries on the UK roads. Some people become unable to work because of sickness or disability.

Life insurance cover pays out a lump sum to your family, loved ones or whomever you choose to get the money. This can be used to secure the financial future of your loved ones meaning they would not have to struggle financially in the event of your death.

If it's a critical illness cover, the payout happens sooner - upon diagnosis of a serious illness, disability or medical condition, easing the financial hardship such an event inevitably brings.

Income protection insurance can be very important for anyone who relies on a pay check to cover their living costs, but it's especially important if you’re self-employed or own a small business, where your employment and income is a bit less stable. It pays a regular income if you can't work because of sickness or disability and continues until you return to paid work or you retire.

In a world where 1 in 4 of us would struggle financially after just four weeks without work, the stark reality hits hard – a mere 7% of UK adults possess the vital shield of income protection. The urgency of safeguarding our financial well-being has never been more palpable.

Let's face it – relying on savings isn't a solution for everyone. Almost 25% of people have no savings at all, and a whopping 50% have £1,000 or less tucked away. Even more concerning, 51% of Brits – that's a huge 27 million people – wouldn't last more than one month living off their savings. That's a 10% increase from 2022.

And don't even think about state benefits being a safety net. The maximum you can expect from statutory sick pay is a mere £109.40 per week for up to 28 weeks. Not exactly a financial lifeline, right?

Now, let's tackle a common objection: "But I have critical illness insurance. I don't need income protection too." Here's the deal – the two policies apply to very different situations. In a nutshell:

  • Critical illness insurance pays a single lump sum if you're diagnosed with or undergo surgery for a specified potentially life-threatening illness. It's great for handling big one-off expenses or debts.
  • Income protection, on the other hand, pays a percentage of your salary as a regular payment if you can't work due to illness or injury. It's the superhero that tackles those relentless monthly bills.

Types of life insurance policies

Common reasons for getting a life insurance policy are to:
✅ Leave behind an amount of money to keep your family comfortable
✅ Protect the family home and pay off the mortgage in full or in part
✅ Pay for funeral costs

Starting from as little as a couple of pounds per week, you can do all that with a Life Policy.

Level Term Life Insurance
One of the simplest forms of life insurance, level term life insurance works by selecting a length of time for which you would want to be covered and then deciding how much you would like your loved ones to receive should the worst happen. Should your life insurance policy pay out to your family, it would be in a lump sum amount that can be used in whatever way the beneficiary may wish.

Decreasing Term Life Insurance
Decreasing term life insurance works in the same way as level term, except the lump sum payment amount upon death decreases with time. The common use for decreasing term life cover is to protect against mortgage repayment as the lump sum decreases along with the principal of the mortgage itself.

Increasing Term Life Insurance
Increasing term life insurance aims to pay out a cash sum growing each year if the worst happens while covered by the policy. With increasing term life cover amount insured increases annually by a fixed amount for the length of the policy. This can protect your policy's value against inflation, which could be advantageous if you’re looking to maintain your loved ones’ living standards, continue paying off your mortgage in line with its repayment schedule and cover your children’s education fees.

Whole of Life Insurance
Whereas term life insurance policies only pay out if you pass away during their term, whole of life insurance pays out to your beneficiaries whenever this should happen. The most common uses for whole life insurance are to cover the costs of a funeral or as a vehicle for your family's inheritance tax planning.

Family Income Benefit
Family income benefit is a somewhat lesser-known product in the family of life insurance products. Paying out a set amount every month of year to your beneficiaries, it is the most cost-effective way of maintaining your family's living standards to an age where you'd expect them to be able to support themselves financially. The most common use would be for a family with children who are not working yet so are unable to take care of themselves financially.

Relevant Life Insurance
Relevant Life Insurance is a tax-efficient policy for a director or single employee. A simple level term life insurance product, it is placed in a specific trust to ensure its tax efficiency. The premiums are tax deductible and any benefit payable should a claim arise is also paid out tax free, which makes it an attractive product for entrepreneurs and their businesses.
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No one knows when exactly they need life insurance, and when they do, it might be too late

As with other financial decisions in life, it pays to start early. Speaking to experienced FCA-authorised advisers is one of the best steps you can take to secure a great insurance plan for your family with minimal hassle

Thank you for letting us help you!

Get in touch with us on any of these platforms.


The guidance contained within the website is subject to the UK regulatory regime and is therefore targeted at customers in the UK. A FCA regulated expert will contact you after you submit your details to discuss further. WeCovr is a trading style of Political And Credit Risks Ltd which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. FCA Number 735613.


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