Sainsbury’s warns: mind the £59,000 life insurance gap
28 March 2007
UK life insurance customers face a life insurance protection gap of £2.3 trillion – or £59,000 each for every Briton aged between 18 and 64, Sainsbury’s Bank has revealed.
Too many people are miscalculating their ‘true worth’, the bank suggests, underestimating the cover they might need.
In particular, the unpaid work parents do should be taken into account, says Sainsbury’s head of life insurance Steve Johnson.
“When assessing the amount of life insurance you need, you should not only consider your debt and income, but also … the value of the unpaid work you do,” he commented.
Although men earn on average £8,892 more than women, the value of their unpaid work is around £6,854.87 less, according to the bank.
One driver of the growing savings gap is the fact that people are assuming a heavier debt burden but failing to adjust their life insurance policies accordingly.
Meanwhile, the recent Protection Report warned that too many British people now fail to obtain relevant insurance, with a fall of 20 per cent in the number of basic life insurance, income protection and critical illness cover products sold in 2006.