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On taking out a mortgage, or increasing their mortgage amount, many people are prompted to take out life insurance to cover the mortgage balance.

Mortgage life cover is certainly important, but if you are taking out a policy for this purpose, you should also think about what additional cover you might need.

If you don’t have a mortgage, then you should still think about this area. Life events that should prompt you to review your life insurance requirements include:

  • Purchasing a home, with or without a mortgage
  • Entering into a marriage or other significant relationship
  • Planning to start a family or to have more children
  • A relationship breakdown
  • A change in your employment situation, such as leaving a role or receiving a salary increase
  • An improvement in your state of health

Depending on your individual circumstances, it can be a good idea to have life insurance for:

  • Repaying your mortgage on death
  • Providing a sum for your family to replace lost income should you pass away – if you are a family breadwinner, how would your family manage if the worst was to happen and your income was no longer available
  • Providing a sum to pay for your funeral expenses – the average cost of a funeral in the UK is more than £4,000, so would this sum be available to your loved ones if they had the unfortunate task of arranging your funeral
  • Providing a sum, payable on death, to mitigate inheritance tax liabilities – you should assume that any property and other assets you own over and above a value of £325,000 could be subject to inheritance tax at 40% on your death. Without appropriate life insurance, this could clearly mean that your loved ones would be faced with a significant tax bill were you to pass away

Moneysworth’s highly experienced advisers are available to discuss your life cover needs and to carry out a full assessment of how much insurance you might need. Contact us today to find out what we can offer.


Trade association the British Insurance Brokers Association (BIBA) has announced that it has renewed its Agreement on Access to Protection Insurance for a further three years. Since the agreement came into force in 2020, BIBA estimates that it has helped 30,000 people to access suitable protection cover.

39 insurers, brokers and professional bodies have signed the agreement and Moneysworth is delighted to be one of those signatories.

The Agreement makes reference to an important provision of the Equality Act 2010. While the Act allows providers to refuse to cover people with health conditions, in certain circumstances, the Agreement acknowledges the important point that insurers must make a “reasonable decision, based on reliable evidence, to refuse cover or charge a high premium to an applicant with a pre-existing medical condition.” This means that there should not be a blanket refusal to cover someone simply because they mention a particular health condition – the insurer should instead conduct a thorough assessment of the extent to which that health condition represents an increased risk.

Moneysworth specialises in assisting clients with many different mental and physical health conditions to find suitable protection insurance.

Moneysworth is also looking forward to two separate awards ceremonies later this year, where we have been shortlisted for five prizes. The COVER Magazine categories we are shortlisted for are: Outstanding Client Engagement, Outstanding Specialist Intermediary and Small Intermediary of the Year. The Health Protection awards we are shortlisted for are: Best Small Protection Advice Firm and Best Individual Protection Advice Firm.

You may be aware of the Consumer Duty, which was introduced by our regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), on 31st July 2023.

The Consumer Duty places new obligations in financial services firms to take positive actions to ensure they deliver good outcomes for their clients.

Moneysworth believes that, in order to ensure our clients get the very best outcomes, we need to explore all possible options when it comes to finding a suitable provider and product.

Have you been told by another broker that you can’t get life insurance, critical illness insurance or income protection insurance?

If this applies to you, then give Moneysworth a try. We cannot guarantee that we can get you covered, but we promise to do our very best. 

Other brokers who say they can’t help you might not be protection specialists, or it might be that they are unwilling to take on the extra work involved with a more complex case. Neither of these apply to Moneysworth. Life insurance and other areas of protection are the only areas we advise on. 

We have extensive experience of securing insurance for clients with many different medical conditions. We know which providers are likely to consider your application sympathetically. We are not afraid to challenge insurers if we think they have been unreasonable in declining an application, or if they are proposing to charge an unduly large premium, and we have been successful in this respect on a number of occasions.

Contact us today if you’ve been finding it difficult to get life insurance, critical illness insurance or income protection insurance.

The central idea of the Financial Conduct Authority’s new Consumer Duty initiative is that clients should receive “good outcomes”.

When it comes to life and health insurance protection, this is likely to mean that firms will need to take a ‘holistic’ approach, meaning that they will need to consider all of a client’s potential protection needs, rather than perhaps thinking just about life protection in one or two areas.

Similar sentiments have been expressed in several recent trade press articles.

This means considering not only life insurance for the mortgage balance, but also critical illness insurance, as well as some form of income protection or payment protection insurance, as there is a much greater risk of becoming ill during your mortgage term as there is of passing away.

It also means considering all potential protection needs, rather than perhaps just concentrating on life cover.

If an authorised firm decides it doesn’t want to get involved in protection advice, then it has the opportunity to establish an arrangement with a partner firm, whereby insurance leads are passed on to this other firm.

How can Moneysworth help?

In the new Consumer Duty world, Moneysworth is able to give advice in all areas of protection, including:

  • Repaying a mortgage on death
  • Repaying a mortgage on diagnosis of a critical illness
  • Maintaining income in the event of ill health
  • Providing a sum for family to replace lost income should the client pass away
  • Providing a sum for care costs and other bills on diagnosis of a critical illness
  • Providing a sum to pay for funeral expenses
  • Providing a sum, payable on death, to mitigate inheritance tax liabilities
  • Replacing income should the client become a full-time carer

One of our particular specialisms is arranging suitable cover for individuals who may otherwise have found it difficult to obtain protection elsewhere

We have helped large numbers of clients whose circumstances may be a little unusual. For example, they might:

  • Reside outside of the UK
  • Have mental or physical health conditions
  • Have a higher BMI. 

If you wish to find out more about arranging suitable insurance for yourself, then contact Moneysworth today to find out how we can help you.

What if you are a financial services firm?

Moneysworth is well placed to become your protection specialist partner firm in the brave new world of the Consumer Duty.

Since our foundation in 2003, we have become an established and respected name in the protection sector, with numerous satisfied clients and several industry awards to our name.

We invite you to place your trust in Moneysworth’s highly experienced team, who have many years’ experience of the protection market and of helping clients just like yours to achieve fantastic outcomes.
If you want to discuss the opportunities offered by introducing business to Moneysworth, get in touch with us today.

Moneysworth specialises in finding life insurance and other forms of protection for people who might be considered higher risk or who may have been declined when they made applications via other brokers.

This includes arranging cover for people who have tested positive for HIV

It’s also not that unusual for us to be able to help clients with a history of HIV, as we succeeded here on nine separate occasions in the three-month period from March to May 2023. It should be noted that as many as four different insurers offered terms to our clients in these cases. If you try hard enough, it’s often possible to obtain cover, and you don’t always need to confine your search to one or two specialist providers either.

It’s not just life insurance we can help with either, as we have also been successful in obtaining income protection insurance – policies that pay a replacement income if you can’t work due to accident or sickness – for people with HIV.

Medical advances in this area have been remarkable, and now many people living with HIV can enjoy long, healthy lives. Insurance companies are therefore much more willing to offer cover to people with HIV than was previously the case.

When you apply, the insurer is likely to want to know when you were diagnosed with HIV, and some additional medical details, such as your viral load, CD4 count and any medication you have been prescribed.

Successful outcomes for Moneysworth clients with a history of HIV for the period between March and May 2023 include:

46-year-old man

  • Diagnosed 2015
  • Taking two forms of medication for the condition
  • Offer was for £358,000 of decreasing life cover over 29 years for £32.28 per month. This was 50% higher than their standard premium
  • At least two other insurers were prepared to offer cover

34-year-old man

  • Diagnosed 2015
  • Taking one medication on a regular basis for HIV
  • Offer was for £250,000 of level term life cover over 50 years at £55.66 per month, around double the insurer’s normal premium. Much of this premium rating was due to his high BMI

46-year-old woman

  • Diagnosed 2004
  • Taking two forms of medication for the condition
  • Her offer was for income protection insurance with a monthly benefit of £1,500.00, a deferred period of 13 weeks and a term taking her to age 67. The monthly premium was £50, which was only slightly higher than the insurer’s standard premium

28-year-old woman

  • Diagnosed 2018
  • Taking two forms of medication for the condition
  • Offer was for £180,000 of decreasing term life cover with a term of 30 years and a premium of £10.78 per month. This was £3.59 higher than the insurer’s normal premium for a female client of this age

Moneysworth boasts a highly skilled and experienced team who know the best approaches to take when dealing with clients who have a history of HIV and other medical conditions

We are whole-of-market brokers and can consider all insurers in the marketplace. This means that there is a better chance of obtaining competitive life cover than is the case were you to approach a broker who uses a limited panel of providers.

Contact us today and see how we can help you.

For too many of us right now, the cost of living crisis is part of our daily lives. Many of us are looking to make savings in any way we can.

You might be tempted to think about making savings by cancelling your direct debit to your life insurance company. You really need to think carefully, however, before taking this step.

Typically, your insurance policy will end once you have missed three consecutive premiums. This means that you will lose valuable insurance cover, and possibly deprive your loved ones of the peace of mind you were so keen to provide when you took out the policy.

You might be tempted to think that you will simply take out a new life insurance policy once the cost of living crisis eases and your personal financial situation improves. If you think this way, however, not only are you losing valuable cover in the meantime, but it might not be as easy as you think to obtain replacement insurance cover in the future. Being a few years older inevitably means higher premiums, and by the time you apply for the replacement policy, your health or personal situation may have deteriorated, meaning that the insurance companies will only offer you cover at a much higher premium, or may not wish to insure you at all.

If you have decided, however, that you really can’t afford your life insurance premium, before you cancel your direct debit, please speak to your insurer to see how they might be able to help. 

For example, your insurer might be prepared to offer:

  • Payment deferrals – where you can miss several premiums, and then make up the missed amount later. They may allow you to do this via a payment plan instead of demanding all of the outstanding sum in one go
  • A reduction in the sum assured, while keeping the policy in force
  • A reduction in the term of the policy, and thus a reduction in your premium, while keeping the sum assured unchanged
  • An option to top your cover back up at a later date with simplified underwriting, so you won’t need to answer all of the health questions that you did at application stage
  • An option to top your cover back up at a later date with no underwriting
  • A reduction of the scope of your cover, so the range of benefits available to you is reduced, but you can still maintain core elements of the policy

June 23rd, 2023

Posted In: life insurance

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