Deciding to move abroad is a life changing decision – and life-changing decisions are usually accompanied by a little bit of risk. The risk can be as slight as you may not find the life you’re going in search of, or as great as you’re taking on a riskier role abroad and therefore you’re more at risk of being injured or even killed.
Any life-changing decision needs to be thought through and planned carefully…and even if you’re just relocating overseas in search of more sunny days or a better job, you need to make sure you and your family are well looked after and well protected from a purely fiscal point of view.
The number one reason why expatriates give up, fail and come home is a financial one – fact. So, to protect against this risk should be your number one priority – which is why an expatriate without life insurance is probably an unwise expatriate! Here are 7 reasons why you, as an expat need to think about getting life insurance, and the right level of life insurance in place.
1) You Have Financial Commitments
If you have any form of financial commitment – from a mortgage to a credit card debt, from a car loan to a rental bill each month – you have an obligation to have life insurance in place. Otherwise who will pay what you owe when you die? Your wife? Your family? Your employer? You may be the most irresponsible person in the world, but surely you wouldn’t want to die and leave those around you struggling to pick up the pieces you left behind – would you? Therefore, if you have any form of financial commitment when you expatriate and move abroad, you have a real obligation to have some life insurance in place in case you die – that way your surviving family will be able to take care of your debts.
2) You Have Dependents
If you have a partner and especially if you have children or even elderly and ailing parents, you have dependents. I.e., people who rely on you financially to a lesser or greater extent. If you die your death will not only emotionally devastate these people, it could devastate their lives to an even greater extent if they can no longer afford their home for example. Therefore, if you’re moving abroad and you have dependents coming with you or even remaining in the UK for schooling or care, you need to make sure you have enough life insurance in place so that if you died, the state and comfort of their lives would not be disturbed unduly. After all, they will have enough to cope with in terms of their grief at losing you…
3) Death in Service is not Life Insurance
You may have a death in service benefit linked to your employment contract – however, this is not the same as life insurance. You can take life insurance with you wherever you go, but if you move abroad, move employer or move career, you leave any death in service benefit behind…and at that point you will be a little older, perhaps a little more high risk, and life insurance will suddenly become more expensive. So get a policy in place now to look after your family’s financial future.
4) The State Will Not Look After Your Family
If you move abroad and you take your family with you, you remove yourself from the British state system and therefore, if you die and your family are overseas and destitute, the British state will not look after them. Even if they move back they will have to prove and establish residency in the UK for up to 6 months or more before they can even have access to the likes of the NHS. Don’t believe us? Check it out for yourself, it’s true. Therefore, if you die and leave your family penniless and in trouble, they may well have to rely on the charity of friends if you don’t have adequate cover in place.
5) Even if You’re Not the Breadwinner You’re Priceless
So you’re a so-called ‘trailing spouse,’ so what? Your role in the family is as valuable as the main breadwinner’s. You take care of the home, you run the children’s lives and look after every aspect of the smooth running of all your lives. If you had to replace you with a professional child carer, a housekeeper, a cook and a secretary you’d soon see how much your role is worth to the family – therefore you need life insurance too. After all, if you died your partner could take on your role, but then who would bring in the income? You are as valuable a person in your family’s life as the main breadwinner is – so insure your life accordingly!
6) Life Insurance Isn’t as Expensive as You Think
If you get cover in place at a fairly young age when you’re fit and healthy, you give up smoking, cut down on alcohol and unhealthy food and present yourself as a healthy prospect to an insurer then your insurance needn’t be as expensive as you perhaps thought. You can also insure joint lives to reduce premiums (although then if you both died at the same time your family and dependents would only get one payout). You can examine carefully the amount you think you need to insure for and that can cut down how much you pay out in premiums as you may not need as much cover as you first thought. And finally, according to the industry, life insurance is currently the cheapest it has been for seven years!
7) You Will Die!
Ultimately we all have to face death. We don’t know when or how it will happen but we do all hope we’ll be very old and we’ll pop off in our sleep – however, for some people the reality is not the same as the dream, tragically. So, you need to be prepared – reduce the risk of your family facing poverty, hardship or even destitution and be a responsible expatriate. Get life cover in place today and then you can forget all about it and get on with living your life.
