Life insurance, health coverage and annuities

Life Insurance

Most people meet life insurance as a product to buy. It is easier to get right in the other order: work out the size of the gap first, then decide how long you need it covered, and only then look at what kind of policy fits that answer. The three questions below are the ones that decide it.

What we go through

• Working out a coverage amount from your actual obligations rather than a rule of thumb
• Term coverage where the need has an end date — raising children, paying off a mortgage, the working years before retirement
• Permanent coverage where the need does not end, or where the cash value serves a purpose you can name
• Reviewing a policy you already hold: beneficiaries, premium structure, and whether the amount still matches your life
• Business owners: key-person cover, buy-sell funding, and what happens to the company if a partner dies

Health Insurance

Health plans are hard to compare because the number displayed most prominently, the monthly premium, is the one least likely to determine what you pay over a year. The lowest premium on the page routinely costs the most in a year where someone actually gets sick. Everything below is about closing that gap before you choose.

What we go through

• Comparing plans on total expected annual cost rather than premium alone
• Checking that the doctors, hospitals and specialists you already use are genuinely in network
• Reading how a plan covers the prescriptions you already take, not drugs in general
• Coverage for the self-employed and for households between jobs
• Small-business owners weighing group coverage against other ways of supporting staff

Annuities

An annuity is a contract with an insurance company: you hand over money now, and it pays you back on defined terms later. That trade can be genuinely useful for turning savings into income you cannot outlive. It is also the product where the terms that matter most — surrender periods, caps, fees, what is guaranteed and what is illustrated — are the ones explained last. Here they are first.

What we go through

• What each contract type actually does: fixed, fixed indexed, variable, immediate and deferred
• Separating what is contractually guaranteed from what an illustration merely projects
• Surrender periods: how long your money is committed and what leaving early costs
• The fee layers — and which ones are disclosed only if you ask
• How an annuity fits, or does not fit, alongside the rest of your retirement income