Introduction to Life Assurance

What is Life Assurance

The main purpose of Life Assurance is to provide money for those people who may depend on you financially, in the event that something should happen to you. These people could include family members or business partners.

It can provide the reassurance of financial protection for you, your family and your business associates.

A Life Assurance policy pays out a sum of money when the person who is covered by the plan dies. The money is intended to pay off any outstanding debts and support your dependants financially by providing them with a further lump sum or a regular income if you die.

Even if there are no dependants who may be financially affected by your death, some Life Assurance policies could go towards covering funeral costs.

The type of Life Assurance and the amount of cover will depend on an individual's particular circumstances and requirements. Factors to consider will include age, dependants, level of income and financial liabilities.

Premiums are normally paid to the insurance company either monthly or annually for a fixed period of time or in some cases, until death.

Types of Life Assurance

While the overall concept of Life Assurance is fairly easy to understand, there are some complexities.

Most importantly, there are different types of Life Assurance products, covering Term Assurance, Whole of Life, Endowment policies and others.

However, because of the many options and flexibility, Life Assurance can be a powerful instrument in your financial planning toolkit.

Please be aware that in some cases this type of assurance is based on an assessment of the health of the applicant.