One source of cheap life insurance is Group Life Insurance. This type of insurance is generally offered through your place of employment. Because many individuals are covered under a Group Life Insurance plan, the rates your employer offers tend to be very affordable. While Group Life Insurance may sound enticing, realize that the coverage being offered is usually not going to be enough to meet the needs of you and your family.
In other words, it might be necessary to supplement this cheap source of life insurance with another policy.
Two big assumptions
How can an employer offer such cheap life insurance? Typically, the employer acts as the owner of the policy and participating employees are considered the insured. Under this scenario, the insurance agency calculates its risks based on a “pool” of individuals. Agents start with the assumption that it is extremely unlikely all or even a significant portion of the insured will die at the same time.
The insurance company also assumes that not everyone will work at that place of employment until retirement age. What that means to the insurance company is that it will be covering the group for a shorter term than it would when only insuring an individual. These two assumptions alone enable the insurance company to offer significantly reduced rates.
How much do employees contribute?
A company that offers group life insurance to its employees may offer participation in the group plan at no cost to employees. That’s definitely cheap life insurance! Life insurance in this case is promoted as a company benefit. When employees don’t pay into their life insurance plans, their death benefits generally are equal to one year of salary. Sometimes a company offers more benefits to management or to union employees.
In the case where an employee has the option to voluntarily contribute money towards the Group Life Insurance plan, death benefits generally are much more substantial. When an employee contributes, it’s usually also possible for the employee’s spouse and child(ren) to get life insurance coverage under the Group Life Insurance plan.
Not only is it usually cheaper to get life insurance through a Group Insurance Plan, employees benefit in another way. They usually won’t have to take a medical exam. In other words, an employee is insurable even if he or she has a preexisting medical condition.
When you’re looking for cheap life insurance, don’t overlook your employer. It’s a reliable source even if it’s necessary to supplement this source. If you do decide to pursue this option, it’s important to thoroughly understand the company policy as it applies to life insurance. In particular, you want to know what happens to the policy should you decide to voluntarily terminate your employment.
The policy typically terminates upon your departure; however, some company policies offer the option of continuing the Group Insurance Plan. In this situation, employees should expect to pay more out of pocket expenses. Even so, it’s still going to be a cheap source of life insurance.
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