Who is Legal & General life insurance?
Legal & General is a London-headquartered financial services group with its main product offerings centred around life insurance, investment management, lifetime mortgages, pensions and annuities.
It previously offered general insurance products but sold this part of its business to Allianz Insurance in 2020, with the general insurance products and existing policies now under the management of Allianz’s subsidiary LV= General Insurance Group. Legal & General has a significant heritage in life insurance, with this being the business area on which the company was first founded when it was established in 1836.
Today, its life insurance offerings are split into three main areas:
- Life insurance, designed to help financially protect your family
- Decreasing life insurance to protect a repayment mortgage
- Over 50 life insurance, an affordable way to leave a cash lump sum to loved ones as a gift or to help cover funeral costs.
Legal & General’s life insurance business unit also offers critical illness cover, income protection and business protection insurance.
Legal & General has over 10,000 employees, with offices at various locations around the UK, including London, Bracknell, Cardiff and Edinburgh.
It is a FTSE 100 company and one of the largest investment manager’s in Europe on the basis of assets under management. Legal & General is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
What types of insurance does Legal & General cover?
Legal and General offers two types of life insurance policy:
- Level term life insurance
- Decreasing term life insurance
- Level term life insurance gives your family a lump sum payout after your death. The amount of cover stays the same throughout the policy, which could help to pay off your debts or help your family cover everyday living expenses. When you get a quote with Legal and General, they call this life insurance.
- Decreasing term life insurance is designed to cover one of the biggest outstanding debts - your mortgage. The amount of cover you get gradually reduces over time. This mirrors how your mortgage debt decreases with each payment you make. Because of this, decreasing term life insurance is often cheaper than level term.
What benefits does Legal & General life insurance include?
Legal & General includes various additional benefits with its life insurance or decreasing life insurance.
- Accidental death benefit
- Free life cover
- Terminal illness pay out
- Critical illness cover
- Second medical opinion cover
- Premiums guaranteed to stay the same
- Change your cover level
Accidental death benefit is included while Legal & General processes your application, covering you for accidental death for up to 90 days until it either accepts or declines your application. If you were to die due to an accident within this time, Legal & General will pay out the amount you’ve applied to be insured for, to a maximum of £300,000.
Free life cover is available if you’re using life insurance to cover a mortgage. You’ll get free life cover if you die between exchange of contracts and completion of your property purchase, up to a maximum of 90 days. The free life cover will end as soon as your life insurance policy begins. Free life cover is for the lower of the level of cover you have applied for or your mortgage amount, up to a limit of £300,000.
Terminal illness cover means Legal & General’s life insurance will give you cover if you die but will also provide a payout to you if you’re diagnosed with a terminal illness and you’re left with a life expectancy of less than 12 months.
Critical illness cover can be added to your life insurance plan for an extra cost. This includes accident hospitalisation benefit as well as critical illness cover for you and your children.
Second medical opinion cover is covered with terminal illness claims and critical illness claims. It gets you a consultation with a specialist to help you support your claim – you’ll get access to a database of consultant specialists across the UK. Second Medical Opinion is only available when a valid claim has been made, and only to provide one second opinion on a diagnosis already provided, up to a specified limit.
Your premiums are guaranteed to stay the same with Legal & General for the duration of your policy unless you make changes to the plan.
Change your cover level with Legal & General. If certain life events happen, you can increase your amount of cover without the need to provide any further medical information. Separately, Legal & General lets you make changes to the term of the policy, move your premium payments from monthly to annual and remove names from a joint policy.
If you choose Legal & General’s decreasing cover to protect your repayment mortgage, you need to ensure that the amount of cover falls in line with the gradual decline in the level of your repayment mortgage outstanding, so there’s no mis-match.
Legal and General offers a selection of life insurance policies, however not all policies may be available through our site and the exact levels of cover and benefits may vary. Before buying your life insurance, we recommend you check the cover and benefits included
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