The difference between Life Insurance and Relevant Life Insurance

20th August 2019

We understand that Life Insurance is never the most exciting topic of discussion however, when you have a growing family, a mortgage or other sizeable assets, it’s important to consider how your death could affect the financial future of your loved ones.

Working as a Contractor, you no longer have the support of an employer. This means you miss out on benefits such as ‘death-in-service,’ where your employer pays between 5-8x your salary to your family members if you were to pass away during your employment period. As you no longer have this benefit, a good Life Insurance policy will help ensure your family receive the payout they need to be financially secure if anything did happen.

Did you know though that you could protect your family’s future and save money by changing your regular Life Insurance to Relevant Life Insurance? Here’s the difference between regular Life Insurance and Relevant Life Insurance.

Life Insurance

Life Insurance is insurance against your life. In the worse case scenario, if you were to die, your loved ones and chosen beneficiaries would receive a tax-free payout to the value of cover you took out.

Benefits of Life Insurance:

• Your family and loved ones will receive a tax free lump sum to help with the loss of your income
• This payout can go toward paying for the remaining mortgage and any other debts, funeral costs and day to day living

Relevant Life Insurance

Relevant Life Insurance does exactly the same as regular Life Insurance; the difference being that Relevant Life Insurance was designed for Contractors and Directors of limited companies as a tax-efficient way to pay for Life Insurance. Instead of the premiums coming out of your post-taxed income, Relevant Life Insurance is paid for through your company expenses – saving you money.

Benefits of Relevant Life Insurance

• Just like regular Life Insurance, your family will be financially protected if you pass away
• They will still receive a tax-free payout which could help toward the mortgage and day to day life
• By having the policy paid for through your business instead of your pocket, it will reduce your overall corporation tax liability and you won’t be subject to paying employee or employer national insurance on the premiums
• The policy is not treated as benefit-in-kind so will not have to be noted on your P11D
• Your life time pension pot will be untouched

You can find out more about Relevant Life Insurance and how much you could save here.

If you’re looking to protect your life, your family and their future, get in touch with one of our expert Contractor Protection advisers.

All content is accurate at the time of publication