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British Expat Life Insurance

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British Expats Life Insurance

How it works:

There are key criteria that you must fit into in order for you to secure expat life insurance, these include:

  • You are a UK National
  • You have a UK based liability e.g. mortgage (either buy-to-let or personal), family, potential inheritance tax liability or ownership of a business registered and based in the UK
  • A UK bank account to pay for the policy
To qualify for expat insurance, you will need to justify the purpose of the insurance, and how much  insurance you need. For example, if you have a 20-year mortgage, it is unlikely that you would be able to  justify the need for a 40-year policy.

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There are also various other factors that will be taken into consideration when applying for expat life insurance, these include:

  • What country you live/intend to live in (i.e. Does the Foreign Office issue advice against travel in that country?)
  • Purpose of Cover?
  • How long you have lived there?
  • How long you intend to stay there?

Even with all of this information, your personal circumstances may affect the outcome of your application as each application is assessed on a case by case basis; therefore the best way to ensure that you have the best cover possible is to get in touch with one of our specialist advisors.

If you already have life insurance, and then you move away from the UK, it is possible that some or all of your cover will become invalid. This depends purely on the individual insurers terms and conditions, and your personal circumstances i.e. where you’re moving to, what UK liabilities you have or what type of cover you have. If you feel like your cover may not be valid due to you moving abroad, get in touch and we will be happy to check for you or even put a new policy in place, so you have the best cover possible.

If you have a pre-existing medical condition, and the insurer needs a GP or medical report, you will need to provide an English copy, if you or your doctors cannot provide a medical report in English then it is possible that your application may be declined.

Expat life insurance

Generally, you should be able to get expat life insurance provided you meet all the criteria listed above. As long as your reason for applying for cover is genuine, and you apply for the relevant amount of cover in relation to your UK liabilities then your application should be accepted. If you have a pre-existing medical condition, or high-risk occupation or hobby, the underwriting will be the same as if you were a UK resident, so you should get in touch to see what cover we can offer you.

Expat Critical Illness Cover

It is also possible to obtain critical illness cover however this can be a lot harder to achieve. The underwriting for expat critical illness cover is a lot stricter than expat life insurance underwriting. Generally, as long as you are not living in a dangerous country, and you do not plan to live there indefinitely, then you should be able to secure critical illness cover. Just like expat life insurance, critical illness cover will also depend on any pre-existing medical conditions or high-risk activities that you have or do, therefore you should get in touch to see how we can help you get protected.

Other products

Other products that are available for expats are family income benefit and decreasing life insurance. Family income benefit is a form of life insurance but upon pay out it is not a lump sum paid out to the beneficiaries, but instead a regular pay out over a set amount of time. I.e. if you took out a 20-year policy and passed away 15 years into that policy, your beneficiaries would receive a regular pay out for the remaining 5 years of the policy.

Decreasing life insurance is similar to level life insurance however the amount of cover you will receive upon your passing will decrease each year, therefore this type of cover has cheaper premiums. This type of cover is designed for mortgage cover and can be an affordable way to cover your mortgage

Unfortunately, there are also some products that are unavailable for expats as providers do not offer them outside of the UK, some of these include:

There may also be additional products that are unavailable or particularly hard to achieve, as a result of this, the best way to be sure of what cover you can and cannot get is to get in touch with one of our advisors, who will be happy to help.

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