Each year the government makes over £650m in inheritance tax from life insurance policies they are not written in trust.
Thousands of thoughtful people have life insurance policies in place to provide for their families with a lump sum should the unthinkable happen.
With Life Insurance companies eager to obtain your business, they quite often overlook this most valuable piece of advice.
Without a trust element, someone dies and the life insurance policy pays into their estate instead, which means it must go through the Will (or the laws of intestacy if no Will) and that means being held up with the probate process.
Probate takes on average 6-12 months to complete (longer in some cases). Solicitors and banks charge between 2-4% of the value of estate to administer probate, which means less money for the family at a difficult time.
A policy paying into someone’s estate also means being calculated for Inheritance Tax, which could mean families losing 40% of the policy value.
The money is an estate asset and could be used to pay off liabilities and debt of the deceased, leaving loved ones with far less money.