It’s always a good time to buy life and critical illness insurance.  The statistics alone provide a good enough reason not to put it off. 

The world is in recession, however, which changes things a little.  First of all people are being made redundant which means that they can’t pay their day to day expenses.  Life and critical illness policies are therefore cancelled.  At the same time there are those people who are afraid of losing their jobs so what spare income they have is being used as savings in case they are made redundant. Then there are those who have been putting it off until some time later when it makes sense to insure themselves (if it doesn’t make sense now, it never will, unless it’s too late to get cover).  There are also those people who see a recession as an opportunity to save money and it is these people who should sieze the opportunity now.

Over the past few months life insurance companies have been issuing statements saying that their life and critical illness premiums are being lowered ever though many of these same companies are also saying that their claims settlement statistics are increasing year on year.  Skandia were the latest provider to issue a statement saying that their life and critical illness premiums would be reduced by an average of 17.5% starting in February.  In January BUPA said that they would be lowering their protection rates.  At the same time Friends Provident said that their life and pensions sales were down by 27%.

Life insurance companies are like any other retail establishment.  When times get tough you have to put a sale on to get customers through the door and this is exactly what is happening to a number of the big insurers.  Getting back to the question as to whether now is the best time to buy cover, yes, there is a sale on if you want to save some money.  Better still, apply for guaranteed premiums so that your savings are reflected all the way through the life of the policy.