INSURERS WE ARRANGE
Life Insurance Providers
The insurers we can arrange cover with, and what each of them tends to be good at, because a wall of logos tells you nothing about which one suits you.
We Work With Some Of The UK's Leading Insurers
We arrange cover with some of the biggest and most trusted names in the UK. Every one of them is a strong company with a long record of paying claims. What they are not is the same. They price the same person differently, and they word their policies differently, so two plans that look alike can pay out in different ways.
That is why the insurer you pick matters. It matters most if you have any medical history, because every insurer takes its own view of your health. Choosing the right one first can be the difference between cover at a normal price and no cover at all.
Below is our panel of insurers. We have written a review of each one, covering what it is good at, where it tends to be competitive and the sort of person it suits. Pick any insurer to read the review.
Our Panel Of Insurers
Twelve insurers, twelve honest reviews. Choose one to see what we make of it.
The Same Person, Very Different Quotes
The most useful thing to understand about UK protection is that insurers do not agree with each other. There is no shared underwriting standard. Each keeps its own manual, built on its own claims experience and its own appetite, and the same application can produce ordinary rates at one and a substantial rating at another.
For someone in good health this barely matters. Several mainstream insurers will land within pounds of each other and the cheapest is usually fine. Once there is a health history it matters enormously, and the cheapest headline rate becomes close to irrelevant.
That is the actual job: not finding the lowest number on a table, but knowing which insurer is likely to take the best view of you, and applying there first.
What Each Insurer Is Best Known For
A short version of each review. Every insurer here is a good one. The useful question is which fits your circumstances.
- Aviva: One of the largest and longest-established insurers in the UK, with a broad protection range and processes built for volume. A strong, well-proven choice for mortgage and family cover.
- Vitality: One of the broadest ranges on the panel, covering life, critical illness, relevant life, income protection and private medical, with a rewards programme that turns healthy habits into real benefits.
- Legal & General: Mainstream term assurance, frequently competitive for straightforward cover on a healthy applicant. Simple, conventional, easy to compare.
- Liverpool Victoria (LV=): Most associated with income protection, where the incapacity definition and the deferred period decide the value rather than the premium.
- Holloway Friendly: A friendly society specialising in income protection. Worth a look where occupation classification is doing the pricing, manual trades especially.
- The Exeter: Income protection and health insurance from one specialist, which is an unusual pairing and occasionally a tidy answer when you need both.
- British Friendly: An income protection specialist mutual. Strong on the parts that decide a claim: the deferred period, and how long the benefit actually runs.
- Guardian: A protection-only insurer and one of the newer names here, with life and critical illness cover designed from a modern starting point.
- Royal London: The UK's largest mutual, owned by its members. Most often asked about for critical illness cover, where the definitions decide the claim.
- Scottish Widows: One of the oldest names in UK life insurance and a mainstay of mortgage protection. Conventional, well-proven and easy to compare.
- National Friendly: A mutual writing protection alongside health cover, where the useful distinction is between a cash plan and full medical insurance.
- MetLife: A large international insurer with a long-standing UK presence, and a route into employer and group arrangements as well as individual cover.
Tell Us What You Have Been Quoted
If you have a quote from one insurer, that is a useful starting point rather than an answer. We will tell you how it compares and, if your health history is doing the pricing, who is likely to take a better view.
Cover that often goes with this
The gaps we most often find sitting next to this one.
- Medical conditionsIf you have a health history, which insurer to approach matters more than which brand you had in mind. This is where that decision is actually made.
- Life insuranceWhat the cover does, and the three decisions (sum assured, term, level or decreasing) that move the premium more than the insurer does.
- Income protectionThe product where insurers differ most on terms rather than price, and where the comparison is genuinely worth running properly.
Common questions
Which insurers does CoverLife use?+
Aviva, Vitality, Legal & General, Liverpool Victoria (LV=), Royal London, Scottish Widows, Guardian, MetLife, and the specialist mutuals Holloway Friendly, British Friendly, The Exeter and National Friendly. Between them they cover the mainstream of the UK protection market, and which suits you depends on your health, your occupation and what you are protecting.
Does it cost more to buy life insurance through a broker?+
No. Commission is paid by the insurer, and the premium you pay is not increased because a broker arranged it. What differs is what you get for it: a comparison across insurers, and someone who can tell you which of them is likely to take the best view of your health rather than which has the cheapest headline rate.
Do you cover the whole market?+
We arrange cover with the insurers listed on this page, which covers the mainstream of the UK protection market but is not every insurer that exists. We would rather say that plainly than claim otherwise. If your circumstances point to an insurer we do not deal with, we will tell you.
How do I know you are not just recommending whoever pays most?+
It is a fair question. We are paid commission by the insurer, and we say so. The practical answer is that recommending the wrong insurer for your health produces a declined application rather than a sale, and a policy that does not suit you does not stay on the books, so a recommendation that ignores your circumstances is bad business as well as wrong.
Which insurer is best for life insurance?+
There is no answer to this that applies to everyone, and any site giving you one is selling something. For a healthy applicant on straightforward cover, several mainstream insurers will be within pounds of each other. Once there is any medical history, the best insurer is whichever one's underwriting takes the kindest view of your specific history, and that varies enormously by condition.
Why do insurers give such different quotes for the same person?+
Because they use different underwriting manuals, built on their own claims experience. The same application can produce ordinary rates at one insurer and a substantial rating, or a decline, at another. This is the single most useful thing to understand about buying protection with a medical history, and it is why the order you apply in matters.
Can you arrange cover with an insurer not on this list?+
Sometimes, and it is worth asking. This page lists the insurers we regularly arrange cover with rather than an exhaustive statement of what is possible. If you have been recommended a specific insurer, tell us and we will say honestly whether we can arrange it.
Should I go direct to the insurer instead?+
You can, and for a simple case in good health it may make very little difference. The case for advice grows with complexity: a medical history, self-employment, business protection, or anything where the policy wording rather than the price decides the value. Those are the situations where buying from inside one insurer's website is most likely to leave you with cover that is not quite what you thought.