When working with clients in their 20s and 30s, one of the most important advice needs they have is for human protection (life cover, critical illness insurance and income protection). When you are that stage of life, often you have debts and higher levels of expenditure than your capital can sustain if you were to lose an income.
We work with a specialist insurance advice firm to get the best cover in place. One factor that must be disclosed as part of the application process is whether before the age of 60 any parents or siblings have died or suffered from a whole range of genetic conditions. If our younger clients do have to disclose any of these, it can affect premiums and/or cover.
Of course, once a condition is identified in the family, it is too late to do anything about the impact on the cover everyone else in the family can buy. A diagnosis of a genetic heart condition in a parent can then lead to problems for all of the next generation in getting cover at a standard price.
The only solution to this to arrange cover as early as possible. The problem here is how the younger generation will afford or be able to work out what cover they need. The simplest solution is for the older generation to buy cover for their children, early and for a long period.
The best gift you can give your children in their 20s, when you are in your 50s, is the gift of a large and long life or critical illness policy. You can pay the premiums (before they get diagnosed with anything nasty) and insure them for a long-period, maybe 30 years until they are your age.
If they don’t need the policy in those 30 years, that should be seen as unalloyed good news. If they do need it, you may very well have saved them financially.
So go early, go large, go long.
At Altor we advise core clients and their younger family members for a fixed monthly fee, from our office in Hook, Hampshire and across the country.