Why life insurance matters – 60% risk losing millions

Your most important asset isn’t your house or your pension – it’s you.

You wouldn’t dream of not taking out home or car insurance, and you’d probably even feel fairly nervous if you didn’t purchase travel insurance for your holiday. When it comes to our most important asset though, the majority of us don’t protect it at all!

To illustrate how much you make over a lifetime: if we take the average UK annual earnings of £27,000 and increase this, in-line with inflation, across 50 years of work, this results in lifetime earnings of over £2.2 million. If you are earning closer to £50,000 or £60,000 a year, you will instead be approaching £5 million.

You are undoubtedly the most important asset you have.

Why bother with life insurance?

Now, I’m sorry to get morbid here but we have to be realistic. Unfortunately, one in two people will now get cancer in their lifetime and, of those diagnosed, 64% will be under 75, so this is a really important consideration for your financial plan.

The Institute and Faculty of Actuaries’ carry out a continuous study into mortality and illness across the UK, which provides a rich source of information to draw conclusions from. When you consider the data, it should act as a significant reality check. Believe it or not, before reaching the age of retirement, a couple in their 30s have a:

You really are your most important asset and if it’s not you, it’s probably someone else in the family, so make sure to protect yourself over and above anything else.