Life insurance / serious illness cover

G

good life

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I am looking for some neutral advice on life insurance and serious illness cover.
My wife and I are in our early 30's. Both of us are in salaried jobs with pensions/death benefit/health insurance. We have just had a baby and a sales guy landed on our door telling us the need and benefit's of having the above policy. Both of us are good savers and for this reason we have no debts, own our home and some land and have 20K savings. Is there any rule of thumb to determine if you need this cover. I feel that if either of us passed on there would be no financial problems. We are both very active so I would hope the risk of serious illness would be low.
 
You came to the right place. As a first suggestion, check to see if you have any existing life coverage;

- through an employers pension scheme
- through a mortgage protection policy
 
Hi rainyday
No Mortgage and pensions have death benefit of 3 times salary on death.
 
There's no easy answer in my view. If you feel that there would be no cash crisis if one or both of you died then you may not need/want life assurance regardless of what the vested interests and "experts" tell you. This topic might be of interest:
 
Having no mortgage & 3xsalary is a great start (assuming you BOTH have this cover). There is no real rule of thumb, but you do need to do the gloomy thinking about worst-case scenarios. If either party died, I guess you'd need to factor in the costs of full-time childcare (& after school/summer holiday care for the schoolgoing years) into the equation. Could you cover this from your existing resources?
 
Sorry - I missed the point about the new baby. In many case once you have dependents (either partner/spouse, kids, incapacitated relatives etc.) then life assurance may well be a prudent thing to have. However there are few formulas or rules of thumb for calculating how much cover is advisable as a lot depends on your general lifestyle etc. If in doubt consult with an independent, professional intermediary for advice (not a tied agent or other sales person though).
 
Thank you for all the feed back. The calculators gave interesting results. I feel we do not need it, however I do not want to be selfish where my family are concerned. Corporations are always pushing what is best for you when in reality they are playing the numbers game. Insurance is critical for such things as your home and car. If either of us died there would be 3xsalary payout which would cover immediate expenses and pay for the future needs of a child. We also have great parents who are always willing to help out if needed.
 
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