The Importance of Life Insurance for Married Couples

The latest research from NobleOak has discovered that married or engaged people are more likely to have Life Insurance.

These are the findings in the 2018 NobleOak research that shows where people had Life Insurance (including Life/Death cover, TPD Total Permanent Disability Insurance or Trauma Insurance) and/or Income Protection Insurance, 70% were married or engaged.

Of those people with some form of Life Insurance, only 5% who were divorced or separated had cover compared to 15% if single, and 9% if in a relationship.

Finding that married people have a higher incidence of Life Insurance clearly illustrates the value they see in being covered. They see it as a necessary safety net if the unthinkable ever happened. And especially if they have children or are starting a family.

A major driver for married people is that as their family grows they may need to upgrade their home or move to a bigger house. In these circumstances you should review your Life Insurance policy to see if you need to increase the amount of cover. This can be a straightforward process with NobleOak as we offer a Future Increases Benefit with our term life cover. If you were to increase your mortgage, your cover can be increased by $100,000 without needing to provide any updated health or medical information.

What is concerning is that of people with cover, only 5% of people who said they were either divorced or separated had any form of cover. This compares to findings from our 2017 research which showed 9% of people either divorced or separated had some form of cover. In addition, people in this group are more likely to be female and aged between 45-54.

People who get divorced or are separated and have Life Insurance should review their cover. As a minimum you will need to review who the beneficiary is and update it if necessary. It’s also a good idea to check if the amount and type of cover is still appropriate for your new situation.

NobleOak has made it easier for people to determine what type of Life Insurance cover they need through our online Life Insurance Calculator.

The Life Insurance Calculator takes about 5-10 minutes to complete and is free to use. It covers Life, TPD, Trauma and Income Protection and produces a personalised report people can then use to get a quote.

The calculator has been independently verified by Rice Warner Actuaries, a leading independent provider of research and actuarial advice to the Australian Financial Services Industry.