For first-time buyers who have managed to save enough for a deposit, there’s a lot to think about when searching for the perfect home. Does it have a garden, is it near good schools, what’s public transport like and where’s the best takeaway? It’s all very exciting.

Then the reality hits with getting mortgage quotes, finding a solicitor, talking to removal firms and constantly worrying about the chain breaking down….

But the one thing people don’t want to think about is that the very worst could happen – that the home they’ve bought for their family to grow up in could be under threat if they were to die or be seriously incapacitated by illness.

Let’s be honest, it’s not what you want at the front of your mind when you are surrounded by the happy glow of your new future.

NO SAFETY NET

This is backed-up by research that we undertook last year, when we discovered that around 1.7 million UK homeowners aged 18-40 have mortgages without the safety net of life insurance to support their families if the worst were to happen.

It echoed what we’d found the year before, that there was more than £433 billion¹ of mortgage debt not covered by life insurance in Britain.

These are quite shocking stats, but I’ll bet they’re not altogether surprising for those reading this column.

The thing is, the days of cradle to grave social security protections are gone – the safety nets that once existed are threadbare. If something happens to the billpayer, and there is no life insurance or critical illness cover, there’s a good chance that the lovingly decorated home with its garden for the kids will have to be sold.

Father of two, Jason Fenton (51) found that the critical illness cover that he took out with his Beagle Street life policy lifted his financial worries as he recovered from a serious heart attack. He said, “It’s been a long recovery and I’m still not fully back to my old self over half a year later….Receiving the money was like a weight had been lifted from our shoulders.”

COST CONCERNS

Sometimes affordability is the issue. For those with their feet just about on the property ladder, the thought of paying a regular amount into an insurance policy might feel an impossible ask when their priorities are ensuring the bills are paid and that there’s food on the table. Of the people we spoke to in our research, 23% said they didn’t think it was a priority expense and around one in five said the cost-of-living crisis meant they didn’t think that they had enough spare cash to pay for it.

But when asked how their mortgage would be paid for if they died, around one in five said they didn’t know.

It means that the very people who are at most in need of support actually have a greater susceptibility to economic shocks – because their income and expenditure might exist in such a fragile balance that they don’t think they can afford to protect themselves. Yet policies can be less than £6pm².

And this is where your expertise and experience is so important in protecting that customer who is sitting in front of you. The mortgage industry and the insurance industry are interconnected, and we both have the best interests of our customers at the heart of what we do.

So, what’s the answer? How do we help more people to prioritise protection?

When we asked a similar group of people, who had taken out life insurance, why they had done so – top of the list was peace of mind, closely followed by financial security for their loved ones.³

Perhaps our customers hold the answers after all. Amongst all the excitement and anxiety about buying a new home…..all they are looking for is for someone to offer them reassurance.

And that someone is you.

Ryan Griffin is protection director at Beagle Street

Unless otherwise stated, all research conducted by Opinium, on behalf of OneFamily, 14th – 19th February 2024, among a sample of 2,000 UK adults aged between 18-40.
¹The Mortgage Cover Gap report, April 2023
²A 30 year old non smoker could purchase a £200,000 decreasing term policy for less than £6 a month
³ Research conducted by Opinium, on behalf of OneFamily, 11 – 22 July 2024, among a sample of 2,000 UK adults aged between 18-50