International Life Insurance

There are quite a few rules here when it comes to the insurers. If you are living outside of the UK the insurers will want to know why you are wanting insurance here, instead of where you live.

As an adviser firm this is one of the things that we will check with you. 

We often have people ask us for help as they don’t know the language well enough in their new country, to feel confident that they can read and understand all of the insurance documents. For us this is fine, but some adviser firms might want to see evidence that you have tried to get insurance in your country of residence first, before supporting you.

We are also able as an adviser firm to help you if you are an expat or if you are a foreign citizen wanting life insurance in the UK.

To be eligible for the life insurance in the UK you will need to be able to demonstrate why you need the insurance.

Potential reasons for life insurance:

• To cover a mortgage liability.
• To cover IHT due in the UK.
• To cover children’s university or boarding school fees.
• To cover care home fees for relatives.

These are just a few examples and you can see with each of them that there is a clear financial need for the cover.

The application process will usually follow the same process as anyone else applying for the insurer in the UK. You will be asked a set of medical questions and you might need to have a medical or allow the insurer to speak with your GP, for them to assess your application.

As well as this the insurer will also want to know if you ever intend to return to the UK.

It is possible that you could get life insurance at standard terms, even if you are living abroad. This will depend upon the country that you now live in and other questions on the life insurance application.

Some countries can lead to high premium increases for life insurance. This tends to be places where there is civil unrest, the quality of healthcare is not great and where the average age at death in the country is quite low. This isn’t always the case, but it is more likely.

When you are wanting to arrange life insurance for IHT purposes and you are outside of the UK, we strongly suggest that you speak with an Independent Financial Adviser. If you do not have one we know a number of firms that will be able to help you.

The reason being is that there are many rules and laws about inheritance tax. It’s important to make sure that all of these are checked against your circumstances, to make sure that the life insurance is right for you. 

It’s essential to make sure that any claim that is paid out through a life insurance policy is planned correctly. If your intentions if for any claim proceeds to travel outside of the UK financial system, you will need specific taxation advice on this. 

UK life insurance policies are covered by what is currently known as the FSCS. This is the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. This basically means that if your insurance provider goes bust, the FSCS gives you protection.

In protection insurance an insurer closing down is unusual. What tends to happen is that the insurer tells the other insurers that it’s potentially closing, and another insurer comes along buys it and then takes over responsibility for all of the insurance policies.