Life insurance is critical for your family’s financial security. However, in today’s financial climate, it’s smart to optimise budget expenditures whenever you can. If you want to reduce the amount of money you spend on life insurance, consider the following points.

1 Review your cover level annually. With policies usually increasing annually with the rate of inflation the cover can escalate and as you age the cost of cover increases as well. Therefore the cover and cost of cover can rise dramatically at a time when you may have made inroads on your mortgage, and less cover can be justified.

2. If you smoke, quit. Underwriters raise the price of insurance by 25%-50% for tobacco users. When you quit smoking and have gone 12 months without using tobacco, you can request that the insurance company remove the extra rating. Doing so will reduce your premiums.

3. Shop around. Each company underwrites health concerns differently. For example, well-controlled high blood pressure might not even warrant an extra charge with some companies, while other companies will rate up the policy.

​4. Cost isn’t everything. Lower priced policies can actually become more expensive in the long term. Don’t just look at the policy which is most economical when you start but consider what the cost of cover would be between companies over a longer period than just from inception.