Posts Tagged: Life Policies

According to one of the largest UK life insurance companies, just 1% of life policies are written in trust. That is disgraceful and reflects poorly on the financial industry.

Let’s explain.

If your life insurance policy is Written in Trust then, in the event of a claim, the insurance company pays out directly to the beneficiaries you name on the policy. The significance of this is easily missed.

It means that if the policy is Written in Trust, the proceeds from the policy never form part of your legal estate and are not subject to Inheritance Tax. The importance of this is illustrated by the following figures:

Take Mr A. He’s a widower and wants to leave everything equally to his two sons. He owns his home which is currently worth 245,000 with a 10,000 outstanding mortgage. His investments are valued at 52,000 and his car and other chattels are worth 18,000. He also owns a life insurance policy for 100,000 which is not written in trust. We assume that the costs of administering his estate and obtaining probate would be 5,000.

If Mr A were to die now, his estate would be worth 400,000 less Inheritance Tax. Inheritance Tax is currently levied at 40% on the value of his estate over and above 275,000 that means that the taxman will walk off with 50,000 and his sons would each receive 175,000.

Now lets assume exactly the same figures except that in this case the life insurance policy is Written in Trust with Mr A’s sons as equal beneficiaries. Because the life insurance company pays out directly to his sons, they each receive 50,000 straight away and non of the money is included in Mr A’s estate. This means that his estate is now worth 300,000 and the taxman can only walk away with 10,000. Each of his sons receives 20,000 more and tax-free!

So simply by signing a few forms, Mr A saves 40,000 tax!

Is there a catch? No all the documentation is standard and is provided totally free of charge by the life insurance company. Your broker through whom you buy the policy, should complete the documentation for you, again free of charge. All you have to do is give the details of the beneficiaries to the broker and sign the form. Solicitors are not required. In the event of a claim, the life insurance company then has to pay out directly to the beneficiaries. Job done! Poor Mr Taxman!

Even if your policy is designed to repay a mortgage, it should be Written in Trust for your partner. Then, rather than your estate receiving the money and using it pay off the mortgage, the money can be paid directly to your partner. This saves legal delays, solicitor’s and probate fees and loads of hassle. Your partner can then use the money to personally pay off the mortgage. Whether this also saves you Inheritance tax will depend on the value of your estate and how you have structured your Will.

So we believe that a life insurance policy Written I Trust is a win win situation. And there aren’t many of those around these days! We can’t see any drawbacks.

Bye the way, no matter what you decide to do, always ensure that you have an up-to-date Will.

Long Term Life Insurance is term life insurance that is taken out for an extended period of time. Most term life insurance tends to be for a period of between one and seven years, but some people prefer a longer term cover. Insurance companies have responded to this demand by offering a new range of products that fall somewhere between whole life insurance and traditional term insurance.

Normally when people want long term cover, they purchase whole life insurance, which covers them for the duration of their life, and also builds a cash value. However, if you do not wish to pay the extra premiums that are associated with the investment, then perhaps long term insurance rather than whole insurance may be the way for you to go.

These policies may be referred to as Permanent Life policies, and can be set up so that they are payable on demise, or at a certain age. Long term life insurance really blurs the line between whole life and term life insurance, with policies often borrowing from both structures to offer the customer even more flexibility. If you do not wish to have an accruing cash value, then you don’t have to. You can also stipulate whether you want the beneficiary to receive a lump sum payment, or monthly payments to boost income.

Unlike shorter term policies, long term life insurance does tend to be initially more expensive, though over the length of the term it may prove more cost effective than short term life insurance policies. Talking to your preferred insurance provider will give you a good idea of the options that are available out there. Then you can shop around and compare policies online, which will give you an even better idea of your options. The market is booming, so if you are looking for more flexibility in your life insurance, now is the time to look.

When it comes to selecting life insurance policies the Internet is the place to look for the best offers. Life insurance companies have flocked to the Internet in recent times, supplying online life insurance hunters with an extensive choice of life policies. The growth in the number of life insurance companies servicing life insurance polices has made a significant impact on life insurance premiums too, bringing them down to record low levels. Basic life insurance cover can now be acquired for less than 50p per day, and in some instances for as little as 20p per day.

Besides choice and price, the Internet also offers convenience to people who are looking for life insurance polices. Life insurance information can be gathered and insurance quotes asked for at any time of the day or night. If it suits you to search out information on life insurance policies at five in the morning, then life insurance companies on the Internet are there for you at five in the morning.

Choosing between life insurance policies

There are four types of life insurance policy available from most life insurance companies. These are level term life insurance, level term life insurance with critical illness, reducing term life insurance and reducing term life insurance with critical illness.

Level term life insurance is the most basic type of the four policies. It guarantees pay out upon death of the policyholder should he she die during the term of the policy. The premiums remain the same throughout the life cover as does the amount paid out in the event of death. It is important to note that many level term policies have an upper age limit after which the life company becomes free of its obligation to pay out.

Reducing term life insurance, which is also known as mortgage life insurance, works a little differently to level term policies. These are shorter policies that are normally taken out over the same term as a mortgage and guarantees pay out in the event of death during the term. However, unlike level term insurance the amount paid out on a claim reduces in line with the outstanding mortgage balance, so ensuring that loved ones left behind are not in danger of losing the roof over their heads.

Both level term life & reducing term life policies can be coupled with a critical illness product. This ensures that the policyholder and their family have an income for a certain period of time should the policyholder become critically ill and be unable to return to work. Critical illness policies also come with life insurance payment waivers so you don’t have to worry about your life insurance premium payments while you are in a critically ill state.

At last you can buy life insurance and get tax relief. The breakthrough results from changes in the Gordon Browns’ latest Budget speech but the tax relief is only available on a new special sort of life insurance policy. You can’t get tax relief on your existing life insurance policies.

These new policies exploit a loophole in the new Finance Bill and should result in savings of between 5% and 15% for standard taxpayers and around 30% for higher taxpayers.

But there are strings attached! You can’t add extras on to your life policy such as critical illness cover and the insured sum must be a fixed sum. Neither can you have a joint policy. Basically, it has to be a bog standard, level term, single beneficiary, life insurance policy.

Then there are more restrictions, but quite honestly, these are unlikely to pose a problem to anyone unless they’re very wealthy! You can’t have one of these special life policies if the annual contributions you pay into your pension plus the life insurance premiums, exceed 215,000 per year. Furthermore, if the value of your pension fund plus the payout on your life policy exceeds 1,500,000, the current limit set by the Chancellor, then the excess will be taxed at 55%. Conventional life insurance policies are excluded from this calculation.

Tax relief on the premiums is automatically collected by the life insurance company so you pay a premium which is already reduced by standard rate tax relief. If you’re a higher rate taxpayer, you’ll have to claim the extra tax through your self-assessment tax return. However, once you’ve told your taxman about your premiums, they should automatically continue to give you the tax relief through your tax code.

So why are the savings less than the value of the tax relief? Well, the reason is that the life companies have to administer the tax relief and there are certain operational restrictions imposed by the Inland Revenue on the insurance company. This means that the basic cost of these policies is a little more than conventional life insurance but after the tax relief you should save.

As with all these loopholes, you must be aware that the Chancellor could remove the tax relief. Having said that, it is rare for a future tax change to be applied retrospectively so you are likely to be safe. Your income could also change and move you into a lower tax bracket. This would reduce your savings.

This new type of life policy is now available from most of the big UK insurers and specialist life insurance brokers. However, you won’t be able to get an online quotation you’ll have to speak on the phone to a Life Insurance Adviser.

And just to confuse matters these policies are known under a range of names: Pension Term Insurance, Life Insurance with Tax Relief, Life Protection with Tax Relief but they all mean the same thing.

Oh yes, let me confirm one miss-understanding. No, you don’t have to buy a pension at the same time!

Life Insurance. How The New Regulations Affect Policies Written In Trust.

In his spring Budget the Chancellor Gordon Brown announced swinging measures to tackle the use of Trusts being used to avoid Inheritance Tax. The immediate reaction amongst the financial and legal fraternity amounted to panic and confusion. Within ten days of the budget speech the estimates of the numbers of people that could be hit by the new anti-trust provisions hit 4.5 million.

Then, following the publication of the draft Finance Bill, the estimates fell to 1 million people. So, with specific reference to life insurance policies written in trust, whats happening?

Well firstly before we go any further, we have to make the point that this article is commentating on the position based on the first draft of the Finance Bill and itll be early July 2006 before that bill becomes law. As I write, the legislation still has to pass through parliament and its possible that the situation could change yet again. If it does I will keep you informed.

Within weeks of the budget speech, the Government retreated from its previously held position that all life policies written in trust are caught by the new legislation. The current position is that if your life insurance policy was written in trust before budget day 2006, then the money in the trust remains totally free of tax and fees. The legislation is not now to be retrospective. Thats one headache dispensed with.

However, if your policy was written in trust after the Spring Budget Day in 2006, then the new tax rules do apply.

For most people, the purpose of writing a life insurance policy in trust is to ensure that the policy pays out quickly and directly to where you want the money to go often to a mortgage provider to repay the mortgage or to beneficiaries in the family to allow them to spend straight away as they like and tax free. These trusts that break upon death, are not now affected by the new regulations. Thats because only trusts that continue to hold money after the policyholders death are targeted by the new rules.

New life insurance policies written in trust will now be caught by a tax charge if the policys payout makes the deceaseds estate exceed the Inheritance Tax Threshold (IHT) of 285,000 and the policy is written in a type of trust known as an interest-in-possession trust.

Interest-in-possession trusts have been used to hold and invest the money paid out from a life insurance policy and pay the trusts income to the spouse. The capital then passes to the children on the death of the spouse. Following the budget, these arrangements will be subject to a 40% IHT charge when then money passes into the trust for your spouse – plus a 6% tax charge every ten years and an exit fee. These taxes can be avoided if the you give your spouse significant control over the trust, which many people may perhaps not want to do especially if they are in a second marriage with children from previous relationships. The alternative is to use a bare trust as this type of trust is not caught by the new regulations. However, if you do use a bare trust, the money automatically goes to your children when they reach the age of 18.

If you are buying a new life insurance policy and want to use it to pay off a mortgage or provide immediate money for your family if you were to die, then you should still consider writing our policy in trust. However, it becomes more important than ever to buy the policy through a broker who is fully versed in the current requirements for trusts and can ensure you get exactly the type of trust you need.