The Difference Between Life Insurance And Life Assurance
A life insurance policy offers your family and loved ones financial security and helps to safeguard their future. In the event of your death, such a policy would pay out a guaranteed sum which would vary depending on your age, gender and monthly payments. Many people do not like to think of such a scenario – it is quite a morbid subject – and would rather not think about what might happen if they died. But a life insurance policy offers a great deal of reassurance and security, and would mean that your family would not be burdened by financial worries if the worst were to happen.
The terms life insurance and life assurance are often thought to mean the same thing, but there are some important differences between them. A life insurance policy is only valid for a certain period of time for the duration of the policy. If you die whilst the policy is active, then the insurance company will pay out the agreed sum. However, if you survive to the end of the policy – in other words, the end of the term – then the policy is finished and the insurance company is absolved from any further responsibility. The only time a payout is made is when a claim is made, so in this sense it is very much like any other insurance policy, for instance home insurance.
On the other hand life assurance policies are tied into market conditions and may be considered a type of investment vehicle. The monthly premiums may be invested and there is the potential for the fund to grow. When you die, the fund is paid out, together with any accrued interest and bonus payments.
These can be further summarised into two categories. Life insurance is a protection policy – it pays out a lump if a particular event were to happen, normally a death. In other words it provides a degree of cover for something that might happen. Life assurance is an investment policy where capital is grown with the investment of monthly premiums, and provides cover for something that is certain to happen.
In recent years life assurance policies have performed poorly and are not as popular as they once were. They rely, as do many other financial products, on strong market conditions to give good returns. A better return is often obtained by selling the policy to a specialist broker although penalties are usually enforced if a policy is cashed in early.
The words ‘life insurance’ and ‘assurance’ are often found when people are searching for the correct policy for themselves. Many people think that they mean exactly the same thing, but we have seen that they do have a subtle difference. A term insurance policy is usually the cheaper option due to the fixed term.
Protect your family with a good life cover policy. Visit PremiumLifeCover.co.uk to find out more about mortgage protection and critical illness cover.