Many of us have life insurance. Some of us have it because we have to as we need it for our mortgage and others have it because they want to make sure that their families are looked after financially if they are not able to look after them. It is worth making sure that your reason for having life insurance is worthwhile to start with. If you have savings or other money behind you, then there will be no reason to need life insurance as well as that money should be enough. However, if you have a mortgage then the insurance could be a condition made by the mortgage provider.

Once you have decided that it is necessary for you to have the insurance, then you will need to look at how much you are paying for it. If you got one with a mortgage then you may have been sold the one that your mortgage provider recommended or if you used a financial advisor, they may have recommended one. You will not have to stick with these though and so it is worth seeing whether there is a cheaper one. There are different methods that you can try in order to do this.

Financial advisor



If you used a financial advisor before then you may wish to go back to them to ask them to check whether the policy that you took out is still the cheapest. Do make sure that your financial advisor is independent first though. Some are associated with particular financial institutions and therefore can only recommend products that those places provide. However, there are some that are independent and will look across all products and these will be the ones that are most likely to find you the policy that will be the best value for money. The only drawback is that they will charge you and that means that you will need to be confident that they will be able to reduce your premium enough to more than cover the cost of you paying them for their services. Whether this is possible will depend on how long you are paying your life insurance for.

Insurance broker



An insurance broker is a cheaper alternative to using a financial advisor as they do not charge. They will look across a limited selection of insurers and let you know whether you could switch to a different one and save money. They will not charge you because they get paid based on commission that they earn on the leads that they provide. So if they recommend a particular insurer to you, it is likely that the insurer will pay them commission as a result of that. This means that there is a risk that they will only recommend insurers that pay them high commission. You may still be able to find one that saves you money through a broker, but there may be better ones that they do not recommend to you.

Comparison website



A comparison website is very similar to a broker except that it is automated. They are also paid through commission and they will provide you with a list of insurers that you will be able to compare on price and decide which you feel will be the best for you to go with. As these use an automated system, you will not need to speak to anyone and this could be preferable for some people, but others may prefer to use a broker as they will be able to explain their situation to them and may even be able to deal with them face to face if they have a local branch.

Own research



The cheapest way to check all insurers and compare them is to do the research yourself. Some insurers also do not appear on comparison websites so you will be sure to include those as well using this method. However, it is very time consuming as you will need to put your details in to every insurer to get a quote so that you can see how their price compares to others. It might be quicker if you use comparison websites as well, as this will allow you to find prices for a selection of insurers and you will not need to visit them singly as well. It can be good to ask people that you know as well as they may be able to make a recommendation as well. If they have found a particular insurer to be really cheap then it could be worth you getting a quote from them.

It can be quite time consuming to do all of this research but it will be especially worthwhile if you have an insurance policy that will last a long time so you will be paying a lot into it. You want to make sure that you are getting a good deal and that you are not paying more than necessary for the insurance cover that you want. You do need to be careful though, that any cheaper ones will still give you the service that you need.