I want to draw attention to the new parent life cover available from Aviva, Legal & General and Royal London (through the Post Office).
The free life insurance offered by these insurers is not something new, but the importance of it and the potential to do right by the customer by talking about it, stood out for me recently.
Each of these insurers offers £15,000 of free life insurance for each parent, for each child they have that is under the age of five, in the case of L&G, with a maximum of one policy per parent – with Aviva and Royal London offering the same for each child under the age of four – for one year.
This is quite an impressive offering and, as far as I can see, it is either really undervalued or barely marketed. I have had three children and I have set these policies up, for myself and my husband, each time that we have had a child.
We did not need it as we have plenty of insurance, but maybe it’s the Yorkshire lass in me – if it’s free, I’m having it.
When I speak to a client and they tell me that they have children under the age of four or five, one of the first things that I do is send them the links to these insurances.
I do not get a commission for doing it and I am not involved in the set-up of the policies, but it is simply the right thing to do by my clients.
I have done the forms online for myself; they are quite simple and easy to understand, and within a few pages you have life insurance. I have never had to provide bank details and I have not once been contacted at the end of the 12-month period by someone to try and sell me more insurance.
Recently the value of these policies really hit home for me. A friend of mine has just had twins. Her partner has severe rheumatoid arthritis, he really is not well, and while I can get him insurance, we are going to need to go through medical underwriting and potentially use specialist insurers.
They have accessed £75,000 life insurance each, free for one year. That is £150,000 of life insurance, free for one year, that could help their children should the worst happen.
I do not think many people could argue that this is not worthwhile, especially for people with pre-existing health conditions who have experienced barriers in arranging insurance.
The Legal & General policy comes with an exclusion for claims relating to pre-existing medical conditions, which is frustrating but understandable given the lack of medical underwriting for the policy. The Aviva and Royal London policies exclude applications for people that have been diagnosed or had treatment for cancer in the past 12 months.
