Life cover, worked out properly

Who it's for

This site is for two moments: the weeks after a baby arrives, and the weeks after a mortgage completes. Both change what would happen to the people you look after if you weren't there, and both are moments when the decisions about cover amount, term and structure get made quickly, often for the first time. A second reader finds their way here later, to check a policy that was taken out in a hurry at completion or through work, and to see whether it still fits the household it's meant to protect.

There's no charge to use the calculator or to read any of the guides here.

How the tax and trust information is sourced

Every statement about inheritance tax, trusts or probate on this site points to the HMRC guidance it comes from, by manual reference number, alongside the date that guidance was read. HMRC updates its manuals from time to time, so a reference read today can describe a different position to one read a year ago, which is why the date sits next to the reference rather than being left off. Where a GOV.UK page sets a rate, a threshold or a time limit, that page is named too, with its own read date.

That sourcing is there so a reader can go and look at the same page for themselves. Tax treatment also depends on things this site has no way of knowing, such as whether you're married or in a civil partnership, where in the UK you live, and what else is in your estate. For that reason, every tax statement here says who it applies to and names the part of the UK it covers, because England and Wales and Scotland follow different statutory routes through probate.

What this site does and doesn't settle for you

The calculator and the guides set out the shape of a decision and show how the numbers move, but they can't see your full circumstances and they can give an indicative answer. For a recommendation tied to your own finances, that's a conversation for an FCA-authorised adviser, or for the insurer and a solicitor where a trust is being set up.