Remember how nervous you were at your first job interview?
Sitting in the waiting area, sweaty-palmed, trying your best to keep your breath under control.
Waiting for the
so, where can you see yourself in 5 years?
wishing you had the guts to answer
in a mirror
But knowing right well, you’ll bottle it and waffle on about career paths and leadership and other stuff you think they want to hear.
That application process was pretty stressful, thankfully applying for life insurance is a breeze.
Here’s what it looks like:
Applying for life insurance online is a simple 3 step process.
Bang in your details (date of birth, smoker/non-smoker) and the amount of cover you need and hey presto, we’ll magically compare the market and offer you the best quotes from all five life insurers:
Which life insurance provider is best for me?
Click on the “why insurer x” and the “Key Features” links to learn more about each insurer. Scroll to the bottom of the quotes page, and you’ll find links to tables comparing the benefits of each insurer.
If you still can’t decide, no worries, give me a call on 05793 20836, and we can go through your options in detail.
Happy to proceed? Go ahead and click that beautiful “Apply Online” button.
Because everything is so much easier online, you can complete your full application form online – no need for awkward telephone conversations with strangers about your various lumps and bumps. Who needs that?
Online applications avoid the whole palaver of having to
and then post it back—what a palaver.
Ensure full disclosure.
You must disclose “material facts” when you’re filling out your application form.
Material facts are those which would influence the assessment of a proposal for insurance.
If you’re unsure whether to disclose something, do it anyway, let the insurer decide whether it’s important.
Some people believe their GP will clarify any errors on their application form.
Don’t rely on your GP to fix your mistakes.
Be as up-front as possible.
If there are any special circumstances, write them down.
If you have information that could help the underwriters, tell them.
Any unexplained information uncovered during the underwriting process creates a poor first impression.
And you know what they say about first impressions.
Once you hit the submit button, we take over.
We’ll review your application form to make sure it’s 100% before sending it on to the underwriters. If you have told us about health issues, we’ll get back to you over email to get more information so we can present your application in the best light, so you get the best price with the least amount of hassle.
At this stage, I may stick my nose in and tell you to apply to another insurer because
.Once we’re both happy with your choice of insurer, we’ll send you declarations to sign digitally. This gives the insurer permission to contact your GP if required.
Finally, we submit your application to your chosen insurer and the dudes in the dungeon, AKA “the underwriters“, take over.
And that is that as the fella says.
Now let’s roll back a little and talk about the actual application form in more detail:
The application has three main sections:
To complete your application quickly and accurately, have the following information handy:
If you can’t complete any part of the application, don′t worry – you can save it and return it later (we’ll email you a link back to the partially completed form)
Fifteen minutes but it depends on your health; if you have to disclose health issues, it’ll take longer. But you’re looking at a maximum of 30 minutes. MAX
Once we receive your application, we’ll keep you bang up-to-date on its progress. You’ll get email updates every step of the way.
If your insurer requests further information, we’ll let you know l immediately so you can chase your GP and keep things moving along nicely.
Some GPs are on the ball and send back the necessaries quick as a wink; others need a nudge, while unfortunately, some need a right good kick up the arse poke with a cattle prod before they react.
All of your details are confidential, and we only share this information with your chosen insurer. For more, please see our privacy policy. Our online forms are secure and your data encrypted by the latest technology.
When I discuss your case with my underwriters before applying, I do so strictly on a no-name basis.
You don’t start paying for your policy until you have given us the go-ahead to issue your policy.
Once your life insurance application has passed the underwriting stage, the insurer will offer you an acceptance terms letter detailing how much you will pay for your cover. If you’re happy to proceed on those terms, the insurer will issue your policy. You’re covered from the date your policy issues until the expiry date of your policy.
Some of our insurers offer accidental death benefit giving you free cover from the date the insurer receives your fully completed application form.
One month’s free cover is also available with some of our insurers, so you are covered from the date your policy issues, but you don’t pay a red cent for 30 days. Not too shabby.
We will issue your documents well in advance of your mortgage start date giving your lender plenty of time to assign your policy.
Don’t worry; if you’re not happy with your cover, you can cancel at any time without penalty. If you cancel within the first days cooling-off period, you get your money back.
Hell yeah, and you should if you can get a better deal. If your bank sold you a policy, you’re more than likely paying through the nose. Don’t be a mug. SWITCH.
Yip, you can buy as many life insurance policies as you like assuming you have the income to support the cover. You can’t buy €10m worth of life insurance if you earn €20k, but you can buy €10m coverage if you earn €1m.
Here’s a blog I wrote on the pros and cons of taking out multiple life insurance policies.
Lemme ask you a question:
What percentage of Life Insurance claims do you think are paid?
A fiver says you’ll probably guess wrong.
(If you’re right, the fiver is metaphorical)
Drum roll, please.
—
—
—
So, around 95 per cent of all death claims are paid out. (sticks fiver back in the wallet)
That’s a decent claims rate. The ones who are declined usually come down to one of two things: the applicant forgetting to disclose something major on their application or attempting to defraud the insurer. (Neither are good ideas.)
Believe it or not, the insurers actually want to pay claims. If you think about it, without claims, there is no point in having Life Insurance.
Plus, they don’t want the bad publicity that goes with declining a claim. So, if you genuinely forget to disclose something, they’ll try to make some payment. But if they get the faintest whiff of fraud…
Moral of the story: don’t try and pull a fast one on the insurer. It won’t work in your favour if you’re caught.
So what are the Life Insurance pitfalls you should avoid?
I mentioned it above but lying on your application is not a good idea. In fact, I’d go so far as to say it’s akin to setting a stack of money on fire.
Don’t lie about the fact you smoke or omit details about any illnesses, current or past, that may affect your premium. You might think pretending you don’t smoke won’t come back to haunt you (or your family, as it were), but it will. Let’s say you’ve paid your premium for 30 years like a good, upstanding citizen, but during that whole time, you’ve been puffing away.
You then pass away peacefully, aged 87 from old age, surrounded by your loved ones.
Your darling wife – let’s call her Mabel – gets in touch with your Life Insurance provider, only to be told your policy isn’t going to pay out because they’ve checked your medical records and found out you’ve been a smoker since you took out your policy.
These two things don’t seem to align – what does it matter that you smoked? The truth is that smoking makes your premium more expensive, so you should have paid higher premiums from the start. Your insurer will likely pull the plug on your pay-out.
At best, expect a much smaller pay-out based on the amount of cover you could have bought for the same premium if you’d told the truth about being a smoker.
Poor Mabel… (literally.)
You’re looking at three main types of Life Insurance for you or your plus one.
The single cover does what it says on the tin: you’re insured, and if you croak, your policy pays out.
Joint life cover insures two people – you and your beloved (or not-so-beloved if they keep leaving the toilet seat up/down). A claim is paid out on the first death only. That last part is very, very important. Your cover dies with the first person.
Dual cover, then, insures two people, but a claim can be paid on both deaths. If you pass away, cover continues for your other half.
For my money (and yours), the dual cover is far and away your best bet. It’ll cost a couple of quid extra, but it’s double the cover.
Let’s look at the maths:
Sarah and John are in their mid-thirties, and they’d like €500,000 cover each over 35 years, so their future offspring will live like royalty in the event of their deaths. They’d also like the option of extending their cover in the future without having to answer any health questions.
Sounds fair enough.
They will be looking at paying anywhere from €80-odd quid with Royal London up to €113 per month with Irish Life.
But look at the difference in price between joint and dual life:
They’ll be paying somewhere between €2 and €4 extra per month for dual cover, and that’s peanuts in the grand scheme of things. Their offspring will thank them from their yacht. (Sarah and John’s kids are irresponsible with money.)
I’ve written about this so many times, but here it is once more, for the now much older people at the back: the longer you wait to start your policy, the more expensive your Life Insurance will be.
Please don’t wait until you’re 40 plus finally take the plunge because it’ll hit you in the pocket. To keep costs as low as possible, you can buy a short term policy with the option to extend your cover when you’re older without having to answer any pesky health questions (which could otherwise result in a nasty loading ).
It’s a no-brainer, really. Buy Life Insurance as soon as you need it. You’ll never be younger; it’ll never be cheaper.
Look, I get it: it’s very easy to take the deal with the devil and pop into your bank or your local insurer and buy the first policy you’re offered.
It’s a few quid a week, and sure, it’ll do – won’t it?
Eh, no…it won’t.
Life Insurance quotes for the same coverage vary widely, company to company. This is especially true if you have health issues – in which case, one insurer might turn you down outright, and you’ll come away feeling uninsurable.
But don’t fret: it’s absolutely possible to get Life Insurance with a health problem.
Anyway, you absolutely should shop around, whether you’ve got a health issue or not.
Again, don’t go with your bank. It’s the quickest route to not getting a good deal. Here’s why your bank isn’t your best bet for Life Insurance.
If you follow the football, you’ll know Simon Thomas, one of Sky Sports’ leading pundits. His wife, Gemma, tragically died in late 2017, three days after being diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia, at just 40.
In three quick days, Simon’s whole life changed.
It’s something he writes poignantly about on his blog, A Grief Shared. It’s a tough read as Simon writes about loss, his career and the new reality of his and his eight-year-old son, Ethan’s life.
In the middle of his most recent blog post, Simon dips into being a single dad’s financial reality. How would he balance his career – which often took him away for whole weekends or weeknights for football punditry?
Simon was fortunate enough to have Life Insurance – and both he and his wife had been insured, although he was the main earner.
Simon writes:
“A few years back, while he was working for Sky Sports, my friend Ed Chamberlin developed stomach cancer. Thankfully, Ed came through; he’s now on ITV Racing and is, for me, one of the very best sports broadcasters in the country. The most important thing to come out of that horrible episode was that Ed got better. But the other significant thing that emerged was that Ed told us all to make sure we had Life Insurance and Critical illness cover if we were ever unfortunate enough to go through something like he did. I did have a policy, but it provided nowhere near enough cover.
“A few weeks later, I sat down in our kitchen in Balham with Gemma and our financial advisor, Roy McLoughlin. We put a new policy in place with much better cover, but there were two quotes: one to cover me and one to cover both of us. You won’t be surprised to hear there was quite a big difference between the two!
“And as Roy told me in the aftermath of Gemma’s death, I was like most blokes that day. You look at the two figures and decide that because you’re the main breadwinner, you’re only going to cover yourself. I very nearly did exactly that but didn’t, thanks to a story Roy told me that day. He spoke of a client of his who had exactly the same dilemma I was having, but in the end, he decided only to cover himself.
“Just 18 months later, like Gemma, his wife developed Acute Myeloid Leukaemia and died shortly after. Roy told us that it was the most difficult call he’s ever had to take as the poor husband rang him in tears to check whether he had covered his wife, and Roy had to tell him he hadn’t, and as a result, there would be no pay-out.”
Because of his Life Insurance policy, Simon can afford to take a break from his career and focus on looking after his son and coming to terms with his grief.
Paying a few euro extra for dual cover doesn’t seem like such a big deal anymore.
Are you looking to protect your loved ones by getting Life Insurance? I can help you get the best cover to protect you and your family.
Complete this questionnaire, and I’ll be right back with a recommendation!
Or, if you want a quick chat first, you can schedule a call here.
Talk soon!
Nick
057 93 20836
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As Ireland's leading life insurance broker, we specialise in comparing the rates and policies from the top five Irish life insurance providers and offering the very best value quotes to suit the individual needs of our clients. Our expertise lies in finding a suitable insurance plan for those with specific needs, be it a particular illness, occupation or claim history, we've got you covered in every sense!
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