Why you should treat whole-life insurance policies with extreme caution

Whole-life insurance policies are often marketed to people in their 50s and over. But there are significant drawbacks and you could end up with nothing.

Man looking at a shrinking pile of coins
Your returns can dwindle alarmingly with these policies
(Image credit: © Getty Images)

The vast majority of life insurance sold in the UK is term-life, which runs for a fixed period. In essence, you are betting the insurer that you will die before the end of the policy term; the insurer is betting that you won’t and that it will get to keep your premiums. Morbid as all of this is, term-life cover is a must if you have dependants.

Whole-life policies, by contrast, last until you die. The bet is about when that happens. If you die younger than expected, then the insurer pays out much more than you paid in premiums (it loses the bet). If you live a long time it gets to keep collecting your premiums (it wins).

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Markets editor

Alex is an investment writer who has been contributing to MoneyWeek since 2015. He has been the magazine’s markets editor since 2019. 

Alex has a passion for demystifying the often arcane world of finance for a general readership. While financial media tends to focus compulsively on the latest trend, the best opportunities can lie forgotten elsewhere. 

He is especially interested in European equities – where his fluent French helps him to cover the continent’s largest bourse – and emerging markets, where his experience living in Beijing, and conversational Chinese, prove useful. 

Hailing from Leeds, he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of Oxford. He also holds a Master of Public Health from the University of Manchester.