The Vault with Financielle - “Should I Leave Everything To My Partner?” (Legacy Week Special) | The Vault Episode 108

Episode Date: March 19, 2026

We’ve got a special episode for you as part of our Legacy Week at Financielle. This week, we’re focusing on getting your life admin sorted and making sure the people you love are protected 💙In this episode, we’re answering your real-life dilemmas:💸 “Do I leave everything to my husband… or protect my eldest?”💸 “I waited too long to get life insurance… is it too late?”💸 “We’ve just bought our first home… do we really need life insurance?”If you’ve been meaning to sort this kind of thing but keep putting it off, this episode will help you get started.Your Life Admin Checklist ✅ (#Aff)Write or update your will ✍️ → Get a free will here (Available until 31st March, 2026)Look into life insurance 💙 → Get a quote here Look into critical illness cover 💙 → Get a quote here🐙 The cost of the will is covered by Octopus Legacy & their charity partners, up to £150. You can get a simple will for free, or a discounted will with trust. Many people choose to leave a gift to charity in their will as a thank-you, but this isn’t required to claim the offer.💙 Financielle is an Introducer Appointed Representative of LifeSearch Partners Ltd, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. This information is for general guidance only and does not constitute financial advice.

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Welcome to The Vault with Finochel. this is a safe space where we talk all things life and money and no topics are off limits. It's Legacy Week. We were just talking off air. I love that. We're discussing off air how long we've been doing it for. And we're not quite sure. Yeah.

We think it's four years. I know that a community member's going to message us and be like, you actually did it in 2021. We're not sure. We've not always had the pod. We did it on Insta. And time flies. I really can't remember if it's four years or five. I think it's four.

I think it's four. We're going to stick with four. We're doing this for four years. So Legacy Week is a week that we do every year to remind you guys to get your shit together when it comes to life admin. And it is in memory of my friend who passed away. And she's got a wonderful legacy for lots of different reasons. And we've shared stories on that.

And you'll be able to find, like, I think we did a reel in it last year where we clicked it. And I've told her story in detail, so I won't go into it now. But she was absolutely amazing. and sadly passed away stupidly young and didn't have a will. And, you know, whilst we were all absolutely so close, friends with her, none of us realised she was still married to her ex-partner. From eight years they'd been separated. He'd gone on to have a baby with someone else.

Her entire estate went to him. And she could have prevented that by either getting divorced, obviously, but crucially, just having a will. And she didn't. And it just was, it's just, if there's part of her legacy can be, that that doesn't happen to another person, another friend, another sister, another daughter, or son as well. It's obviously it works both ways.

Then we've done our job and we've kind of done something in her memory. And so we obviously will all year round promote the idea that you should get a will and you should get life insurance and that kind of protection insurance that once you've done it, other than a gentle review, you don't need to do it again. But life gets in the way and sometimes it's a bit dull. And sometimes it's hard. Isn't it confronting your mortality? And I don't want to think about if I was going to get Paul-Aid, what we would do.

I don't want to think about getting poorly, but it's happening to so many people, especially as we get older. And we hear so many dilemmas around not having this stuff sorted. That's why I have Legacy Week because we do it. It's book-end it. It's one week. And so this is where you need to do your life admin. So we're going to specifically answer some dilemmas on this, aren't we? We're losing today.

We've got Legacy Week-focused dilemmas that you guys have sent it in. But as part of this, in the entire month, the rest of this month, Octopus Legacy are offering free wills with us, aren't they? Yes. So you've got until the end of March, 2026, just for anyone that's listening to this in the future, because you will, you always come back and listen to all our old episodes. It's all of March that you get a free will with Octopus Legacy. And if you listen to this afterwards, it's still really cost effective.

So if you don't, please do look at it. Because for what could go wrong and for not a lot of money, you can secure. your intentions and your family's future if you do this. But for March, you're going to get free will. It's free. Have I said free enough times? It's funded by the charities. Like this is kind of how it works. It's completely free. Click the link in in the show notes and have a go at it. At the same time, it will be remiss of us to not talk about our partner, Life Search. A Life Searcher an amazing protection partner that we have that we vetted for over a year. We went to see them. We went to visit them. They will do you a free insurance.

review. And when I mean this in a non-pushy way, I'm being incredibly serious, we have only women that answer the phone actually. Chelsea, shout out to Chelsea, because lots of you have spoken to her. And she's, Chelsea and Gemma as well. Chelsea and Gemma, it's so amazing. Women will pick up the phone and they'll talk through what you've got. So if you can dig it out and you can ring them, again, the link will be in our show notes. Just chat through because this is not a sales pitch. This is get the protection that you need. But do it with someone that you feel comfortable with you don't feel like you've been sold to. You are absolutely not being pushed. I cannot tell you the feedback that we have had about these two women. You guys, and if you've not told me yet,

tell me how amazing they are, if you've spoken to them, because it really is so, so assuring, you feel so much better after a call. I've known some of you guys, ring them and then nothing's changed because they've got, they've said, you are just in the right place, you've got the right things covered. I've heard some of you come back and say, I am more protected than before, and I'm paying less. And then on a third level, I've got people saying, she actually listened to me and it fit my budget and I just feel that I've been able to get that protection that I thought was out of reach.

So again, speaking to Life Search about this free insurance review, you do not have to pay, you just get an absolute professional's opinion and then do with it what you will, you go somewhere else or don't do anything about it, but at least you know. So those are the call to actions for Legacy Week. Let's jump in, Lucy.

What have you got and how can we help people with their legacy today? Okay, so we're actually inundated with dilemma So today we have three dilemmas. What? Oh my God, Holly, we're going to have to talk. For the first time ever. This is first time ever. You're going to have to, Lydia, make sure we don't blab. Like, on the TV they do this like sign.

It's like a rolling, rolling sign. Okay, first dilemma. Quick financial win. One listener said speaking to Chelsea at Life Search made sorting income protection and life insurance so easy. And she finally feels like a boss with her cover sorted. Want the same piece of mind? head to financial dot com forward slash protection to get your free quote today do i leave everything to my husband or protect my eldest

hi girls i'm finally getting around to sorting my will with octopus and i'm struggling with a pretty important pot who gets which of my assets i'm married with three children and one of them is from a previous relationship but my husband and i raise all three as one family unit on paper we are one household in legal terms i'm not sure it's that simple i'm struggling with how to divide my assets in a way that's both fair and practical. Do most people leave everything to their spouse and trust that they'll provide for their children? That feels simple, but I worry about what happens long term.

If my husband were to remarry in the future, could my eldest child be unintentionally or even intentionally be disinherited? On the other hand, do people split assets between their spouse and their children in their will? That feels fairer in theory, but what if my husband needs access to those assets to run the family home? I'm trying to think ahead and avoid future complications, but I feel torn between protecting my eldest child and making sure my husband isn't financially restricted. Ultimately, I just want peace

of mind that if I die, everyone I love is in the best possible financial position. I shall also add, I have life insurance, but I've just realized I'm not actually sure who the beneficiary is. I think it's my husband, so that's another thing that I need to check. I'm just picturing like the youngest kid being in charge of the house and going, dad. You have to move out. It's a very real, it's a very real problem, isn't it? What do you think at all? We did a blended family episode, remember, last year?

Yes. So you can go back and listen to that as well because I'm sure someone said, I don't want my future. I remember that one. It was so funny. Like if I, she'd like, cosplayed in a head that she died and that her current partner had remarried. and her son was from a different relationship.

It wasn't his dad. They were a family unit too, but it was a blended one. She'd had a child from a previous relationship, got married, but she'd cosplayed in a head that should she pass away that the new wife that he's potentially going to have that her son would be disinherited, like we cosplayed that. And I think I might have given someone called Sandra a hard time who had cosplay that Neil was then going to remarry

and I wanted to cut her out of everything. And then we got like, we had to, show solidarity for like the stepmums in the community that like you wouldn't you know like it's so and there's and actually this is a really important point that you have to document legally to cater for the worst case scenario not because like because you do believe that people wouldn't and people change and circumstances change and things happen accidentally you know when I shared the story of my friend most decent humans would have obviously said and by the way he contributed to another

these assets it wasn't like his former home like she was they would have been separated for years it was her assets her company shares her apartment that she'd done for eight years on her own so it wasn't like kind of his stuff being given back most decent people would have gone well obviously it's for her family yeah because her family were effective left with nothing

they were left with nothing not even personal items of hers like it was awful the cat like it was just awful so you can't cater for what you think people should do morally. That's why it's just good for paperwork. It's the same with them when you're buying a house with someone and you're not married. And if there are different deposits and lots of different scenarios, it's okay to document that with your solicitor and to put certain agreements in place that should this end or should we sell the house, you know,

you don't have to talk about even ending. Who owns what? if like a family's given a gift, you know, parents have given a gift. It can be protected and it's not like soulless and it's not not showing glove. It's just underpinning it with, you know, what, what should happen. And I was doing my will, I think you were the same hall. It is that scenario with even not in a blended family. Who should I leave stuff to? Because there's what happens in law. If you didn't have a will, which is one scenario, you know, the reason you have a will is to intentionally put, put that, what you want to happen. I also think it's a big factor is how much you have. So when we're

talking about assets, you and I or me and the person on the street might have very different assets. So if we're talking a situation where someone like has a rented house or doesn't have home as an asset, doesn't really have much of a pension and might have like, let's say 10,000 pounds in savings. Really, if you've got a partner, a married partner, This isn't some big inheritance that needs to be carefully looked after. It's your life savings. And presumably in that scenario, if I had £10,000 to my name, and could see that being the same for like the next two, three, four years,

I would probably just write everything to husband because what I'm going to do, like give the kids like a thousand pounds each. Like he needs help to maintain the household because I've died. Whereas if you have quite a lot of assets and you've got pensions and you've got multiple property, and we have that in our family. There is an element that actually it makes sense for me to make sure that my husband can run the house and has enough support,

but that I do leave assets to children, you know, whether therefore when they're older or whether therefore when they're younger. Because if I didn't and if I left a big, big, everything, all my assets to Carl, then, you know, he not only could it remarry and it would disinherit possibly even all of them, you know, there's that scenario.

by the way, he could write a new will with his new wife that gives everything to the wife. Yeah. And even, you know, like, so everyone loses out then, we could spend it all. Like, what if he spent it all on Man City tickets? And then... He loves curtains and carpets and rugs and he loves bath mats. Like, he could go crazy in B&M. And the problem would be our children would have nothing.

So even in that scenario where it's not just about, like, re-inheriting. Yeah. It does depend on the pot. Now, on a technical level, obviously, this is a, um, uh, um, uh, a, uh, a probate in a wills matter. This is what typically a lawyer or an advisor would help you with. And so we did ask, Laura, another lawyer, another lawyer from Octopus, what kind of guidance Octopus were given this scenario, because what I love about Octopus legacy is if you have a pretty straightforward situation and if you don't need a real, real length of backwards with the solicitor, but you do need that little extra bit of guidance. You can ring them and speak to an advisor and walk through. But these are things that they've said to consider. her. So option one, could leave it all to the husband. It does have the risk of children not being protected. And again, so she's put that, like, for lots of reasons, for the fact that he could spend it all, for the fact that it could, you know, he could go on to remarry. There's lots of reasons,

but that you could do that, but there's a risk. Option two, leave assets directly to children, e.g. splitting 50% to spouse and 50% to children. And so if children are minors, trustees must manage the assets that you leave them, the spouse might not have enough liquidity to run the household or stay in the family home. So that's something to really consider. And that's what I was giggling at the beginning thinking about if my alley was like, Dad, move out. I'm in charge. And it can create practical complications if the children own part of the home. If you think about that, if you wanted to downsize, you want to move. It's messy. Messy. Can I out? Even if there's trustees, I can imagine that's a bit more difficult. Option three, she says to look at a life

interest trust as a consideration. The spouse can get the right to live in the family home for their life or get income from the assets, or from assets, not the assets because of the family home. But the children will ultimately inherit it. I have seen that quite often, actually. This means there's a guaranteed inheritance for children after the spouse dies, but it protects the spouse to be able to live in that home. Option four, a flexible life interest trust, so similar to the one I've just talked about,

but it can be adjusted if needed, and it gives the trustee's flexibility to lend or give capital from the trust to the spouse during their lifetime. And I think that's super helpful. Those are the, what that does, it brings to life what could happen and what kind of things you want to, you want to underpin it. So I think if she sits down with a husband and both way around and they consider this, because often spouses do copy each other as well. It's actually very, very simple.

And it means that children obviously understand what's going to happen and work out what's right for them. And it feels like either doing one of those where there's maybe one of the trusts or, or there's just flexibility involved, but you're thinking of both spouse and both children. It sounds like that will give you peace of mind. But again, pick up the phone to Octopus and speak to them about this. Another thing you can do, which we've talked about before,

is in a blended family especially, or not, you can get a life insurance policy for your children. And I think whilst it's definitely, you know, maybe seem as a luxury, if you either don't have a lot of assets or if you've got this situation where all your assets are tied up into kind of like a family home, lots of people, especially with children from previous marriages, you can take out a life insurance policy and they're the beneficiary. And this is something again, ring Chelsea about or Gemma at Life Search and ask them about it because that can be a wait. That is ring fenced. If you get

50,000 pound or 100,000 life insurance policy for your child for 20 years, done. It doesn't matter about a will. It doesn't matter about pensions. It doesn't matter about remarriage. That is for them. Well, it pays out straight away. They're not waiting for some inheritance to come later down the line. through a house. Trustees aren't involved. Generally, well, like, sometimes it can be.

But generally, it's just, it's like ring-fenced. Yeah. And there's something about that that as a parent will probably bring you quite a lot of peace of mind.

So this is like a jigsaw. So I think definitely speak to the advisor, Octopus legacy, about which one suits your scenario the best. And then also consider speaking to life search

about whether you can support whatever you choose and share with them what you're doing on the other side because it probably impacts it. But you know what? Then you'll feel good. You'll just feel so,

better. We've got, I think the example that we've used before, and there's an article on, if you go to fananshell dot com's board slash protection, it's protecting your inheritance in a blended family. I think we did like a blog on it. There's a story about Suzanne Shaw, you know, from hearsay. Yeah. So she... I know, she...

I know, she... Gonna be there. She, um, her dad remarried. So her mum died. Her dad remarried. His will. I think everything went to his new wife. And then she was that effectively disinherited.

We had that in our family where our auntie, I don't know if you remember, she, her mum and dad, her mum died and dad was very old and actually quite vulnerable and quite poorly and met a new friend. Yes, lady friend. Lady friend. I don't think they ever got married actually. And suddenly close to his eventual passing, his will changed. and everything was left to a new lady friend and not his sister, she's got a sister as well, two daughters who had children and, and listen, it's one of those, I was about to say it's just one of those things it happens so after it does. It really does and it is very, very sad and there's some very, very unscrupulous people

out there as well which is kind of what you're protecting against generally. But yeah, it happens quite a lot and so, peace of mind. This is free, like just go and do it. Just go and go, like said, the link in the show notes. We'll be covering it on social media this week. Like if you're listening on the week of Legacy Week, also on fanat shell.com, loads of long form stuff. So if you want to go, okay, I need to read this.

Like I'm listening to it, but I'm driving. I'll look at it later. All the links, all the call to actions will be there. Yeah. Okay, time for our second dilemma. Oh, God, second of three. Hi, ladies. It's Chelsea from Life Search.

Some of you might recognize me if you've called to chat about your protection options. I just wanted to drop by and say how great it is to see protection being talked about during Financial's Legacy Week. Research shows us that women in the UK are less likely than men to have cover in place, so I really love that this community is opening up that conversation. Through our relationship with Financial, Life Search reports more women in understanding protection and the benefits it can offer so they can make informed choices for themselves. If you're curious about your options but don't know where to start, head to the Life Search link in the podcast show notes to book a free protection review of one of our advisors.

I waited too long to get life insurance. Is it too late? Hi girls. I've been meaning to sort my life insurance for years, but I kept putting it off because I'm healthy, busy and it's never felt urgent. Now I'm in a completely different situation. I've recently been diagnosed with an autoimmune condition. It's manageable and I'm still working full time, but it does come with higher risks of other complications later in life. Nothing life threatening right now, but definitely not perfect health anymore. I'm married and we have two young children. We have a mortgage and some savings, but if anything happens to me, my income would absolutely be missed. My husband does have life insurance and I don't, and now I'm panicking that I've left it too late. Have I completely messed this up? Is it still possible

to get life insurance after a diagnosis like this, or will I just be declined and charged or charged something ridiculous? I feel really frustrated with myself because I've always thought I'll do it next month and now next month feels like it might cost me. I don't want to overreact, but I also don't want to leave my family exposed because I procrastinated. Is there anything I can realistically do now? Oh, poor thing. Really powerful one. And actually, a lady that we met the other day was on stage on a panel and she was talking about, I literally, said I could kick myself. It could literally be the same person. She said verbatim that she put off doing her life insurance because she worked part-time.

She didn't see her contribution financially to the family as, like, significant in order for her to take out life insurance, sorted out her husband, who was the breadwinner, went to get life insurance not that long ago, and it ended up being much more expensive than when she, like, quoted for it years ago and should have just taken it out at the same time as her husband's. But this is that life insurance gap that we talk about, and we're on a bit of a mission with life set to try and close it. Because so many women, if you're not the breadwinner and you're a part-time carer, or you just don't earn as much money as your partner, you kind of just kind of go, well, he

needs it more than me, because should he die, we'll need that money. But it's the same the other way around. If you're caring for your children part time, your partner can't leave work to look after the kids have got to bring the salary in, so you're going to have to look at getting childcare. Childcare is so expensive. To replace you,

it's really, really expensive. So if you can get, you know, a cost-effective monthly payment to make sure that all this is looked after, like why wouldn't, you know, and I understand a frustration, kicking herself because they always say that earlier, the younger, that you can get it, the cheaper. Yeah, typically. depending on the loads of health conditions,

like you'll have to do a questionnaire to kind of work out what it would be. It's individual for everyone, but typically it would be cheaper the younger you are. Yeah. Listen, and so you've asked us this question. So, Will, it is what it is and you are in this scenario. It is, unfortunately, but a helpful reminder for lots of everyone else listening to this,

that, you know, get these policies. It's often cheaper the younger you are. And the younger we are, we tend to. to have less of these serious diagnoses. So if you've taken anything from this podcast, listen to what our listeners just said. So for her, you know, not everyone has life insurance

and not everyone needs it and not everyone can afford to pay for it, especially given some, sometimes it's like jobs, like really dangerous jobs, that it's just like, you're a shark driver. Shark driver.

Shark driver. What a job. The image that I just had in my head. It's like, short. diver and stunt driver in my head. I prefer shark driver. You could drive sharks. It could be really, really dangerous.

And so people are going, no, I'm not going to cover you. And so you're having that conversation early and try and get in. And also, it's a really selfless thing to make sure you're covered because most of us are like, if you die, you cover. Like, what do I get? Yeah. You care more about whether your partner's covered because you're all going to the one left in the shirt.

There's all the jokes about like, I'm worth more to we're dead than a life. I'm like, try it. How long do you get for murder? There's like loads of very, very bad taste jokes. But it is a very selfless thing to do because you are sat thinking. And actually, women, more than men, very generalisation. Sorry, guys. But we do think about catastrophize sometimes.

But we also go, well, what would happen if we didn't do that? We'd do this. This is part of that kind of planning. So if you could just treat us as it's like, if childcare fell through, what would you do? is like that on a really serious. Another benefit of being an overthinker. Oh yeah. The mental overload.

What is it called? Is that right? The mental overload. We talked about it yesterday. What was that man said? Yeah. Well, the mental load, but it is a overload. It is an overload.

It should call it the overload. So it is helpful to think about that. For you and your scenario, the best thing you can do is speaking. I know what actually happened to be the answer on the previous pod. But speaking to an advisor, doing a thorough health questionnaire. Sometimes you go for health screenings.

We did actually go to a critical illness cover. My husband had to because he's over the age of 40, so he happened to come with a screening. We were like, we didn't need to do that. I was like, this doctor came in. He was going to a theatre actually. It sounded like a good job. This doctor just comes to does a physical test and then goes off with his life. So it's worth, you don't know yet.

She's no idea how much. She's no idea of this autoimmune condition will or won't impact it. And I certainly don't and you certainly don't. You have to speak. And there's different providers and different. different specialisms and then ultimately different prices because what you then do, you might get told you're not going to be covered. I don't know, but unlikely, usually everything is coverable and it comes at a price. We'll kind of see when you speak to someone. And then when you get that

number back, if you get a number, you sit and you go, what would we do? And that's the biggest thing. I did a big thing on BBC, mine live about this. It was challenging everyone to just in all these scenarios think, what would we do? So if you're the family. loses your income, have a think what your partner would do. And you just start workshoping it because you understand, one, what the financial gap is, wage-wise, like what could you drop? Could you move house? Could you downsize? Could you afford that life insurance payment and or criticalness cover payment? Again, it depends if you can get coverage. But if you can, what can you do in your budget that prioritises that? Because if it is that important to you,

you will make it happen. You will make it worth it. If you can find 400, a month for a car finance payment, you could probably, you know, this isn't this, listener, but you're going to be able to find it. Talk about modelling budgets all the time. Wouldn't it be helpful to do a financial budget without your partner's income? Yeah, we do it from a taste of yours. Don't just do your partners and make sure they're covered, do yours and be like, okay, my part-time salary that would go to, okay, then what would we do with the kids, right? Well, they'd need to go to after-school club. Okay, how much is after-school? Like, why would you not model it? Yeah, and even if it's rough and ready, it's better

than nothing. And you can test out these different scenarios, you know, like said, in the budget, in the financial app, you can do a million budgets. Stress test your budget. Have a little go at it and see what would, what you would do because your options for me are, you know, once you've spoken to an advisor, get cover at the price that hopefully you're offered cover. And again, don't forget with, with insurances, you can change the amount, the lump sum amount. So some people might get like half a million of life insurance, but some might get 100, some might get 50. Flex it up and down based on how much your mortgage is.

Everyone just does. That's one thing as well. When you speak, a lot of people will come to talk about life insurance when it's like the mortgage advisor. Like, don't just go off the price of your house. Because everyone kind of does that, don't they? Yeah, they do.

I mean, that's a tough time when expenses are tough. But it's definitely something to make sure that you, it's the gus back to the, what would you do? What would you do? And then get the right amount. And then if you feel that the amount that you've been quoted, if you're lucky enough to be quoted, is too high and you don't want to pay it, then what would you do? That means for me, you need good emergency savings. You need really good pension that builds up.

That becomes an asset for your family. There are different ways. Very big expenses. Yeah. And also like a way to back out of a plan. So if you have a particular size home and a particular size neighborhood, if the kids are in private school, those are all things that could change. And I say that because I want you to know that you might like, this is so deep. But if you're gone, they might be fine and I'm sure they'll be fine.

And it's like what fine is because what I don't want her to do is blame herself for not getting a policy. And she's not, you know, she may have been diagnosed with the condition, but she's not Polish. She's not got, you know, any pending diagnosis and she doesn't know what the future holds. So I wouldn't want her to sit and worry that she didn't do something because as women, we do that. we're like awful with that with those assholes anyway. But use this as an opportunity to explore what you could do and pick the right combination.

I always think what would I do for me? I would want to try and get coverage. I would want to try and get it at an amount that provides something. Yes. Even if it's punching in the budget and even if it's not as much as I would like for them to make sure there's something and then crack on. Yeah. We're seeing too many people fall out the other side out where they've not got wills.

They've not got life insurance. and then it is a massive stress on the family. Yeah. Like we see too many of those kind of fallout stories, which is why we started Legacy Week, to try and combat that. But I think use the financial, that stress test your budget,

do some modelling, it's our favourite thing to do. Because then you've gotten scenarios and you can agree as a family what you want to do. I like it. Okay, time for our third dilemma. Personal finance, let's face it, can be boring. But at Fanchelle, we do it differently. From guilt-free spending to the perfect payday routine,

our blogs help you feel, confident and in control of your money, head to fananshell.com to get informed, entertained and empowered today. We've just bought our first home. Do we really need life insurance? Hi, girls. We've just bought our first home and everything feels very real. Mortgage payments, council tax, furniture, decorating, it's a lot. Our mortgage advisor has told us that we need to get life insurance and I completely understand why, but I'm feeling very overwhelmed. It's another monthly payment at a time when every pound feels like every, it already feels accounted for.

We still need to buy furniture, sort the garden and build our emergency fund back up after the deposit. Part of me thinks, of course we should do it, but another part of me is wondering whether this is something that can wait a year until things feel more settled. We don't have any children yet, but we both rely on each other's income to cover the mortgage.

I guess my question is, is life insurance genuinely essential at this stage? Or is it something advisors always recommend? And how do you balance protecting your future without stretching your present budget too thin. Oh, I've just talked about the mortgage, mortgage advisor because that's generally when we find that most people coming to conversation about life insurance, sorry, for the first time. That genuinely seems to be the first time that you would ever have a conversation about life

insurance when your mortgage advisor goes, right, okay, before you get your mortgage, you know, you need life insurance, like, and everyone thinks it's, it feels a bit like, oh, they're forcing it on me, like, I don't really want to do that. And I get that every penny is stretched, especially with your first home. you've saved up all that money and then all the bills like the reality hits home. Like they've listed out council tax mortgage like insurances like it's a lot. But they should just be seen like if you're going to get house insurance to protect stuff in your house, should anything go wrong.

Sure you should protect your life. Like I just see it as a bill. It should just be seen as another utility, not something major because I would hope that it sounds like you're young. I don't know. Young, free and kind of single. That it would be possibly the cheapest is it's going to be the cheapest it's ever going to be today. your life insurance quote, giving it a year it could go up. Things can happen.

Like we've just heard from the previous dilemma, I want you to learn from those people where they say, I wish I'd have done it the day that I thought about it and put it off and now I've been diagnosed with this. Like you just don't know what the future holds. So I would treat it like any other insurance or bill in your house, put it in a line in your budget and just get it in there. Could we take a moment for our poor mortgage advisors that like,

I was really excited they want the keys to the house and they're going, right, can we talk life insurance? And everyone's like, no. I want to decorate my living room. I'm picking like paintclos. Don't hit life admin on me. But it is a really good opportunity for you to get protected. In fact, there's a big danger for lots of you that rent and rent long term and rent

with someone else because there's no rules about having to buy homes. We've said this before. And Lucy, you're in this scenario. You know, you and your partner rent together. You rely on each other's income. And so it's always what, and then some people then have children, some people then have pets. What would you do is true of everyone? And lots of people, thankfully, when they purchase a home, the mortgage advisor sorts that for them.

And then they're asked the question, right, okay, I know lots of banks don't necessarily require it actually. And I think they should, but they advise it and they would like it because obviously it's much easier for a bank that if one of the people buying it dies, there's a payout that pays the mortgage because they're not having to evict a widow or the partner of someone that's just passed away. Like that's just not what they want to be involved in. So luckily, it's a great opportunity for the mortgage advisor who is regulated in and who is able to like discuss options with you properly gets you and gets you on this, turns you from uninsured to insured because if they didn't and for all those people that rent for years and build a life and build, you know, with children and a family, if they've not thought to get

life insurance and they've never had an advisor because they're not getting a mortgage. They slip through the net and that is a big worry I have for millennial and younger generation is a gap. You know, sometimes you might think, and I'm using the example as you're like, I'll move home. But there could be a scenario where you or Alex couldn't and that was your life and you might have moved somewhere that's perfect for work and that you can't, all there's no room for you at home. Like you can't just something go back. So therefore, if you, it's the what would you do always? So in this scenario like you just said, I'll learn from what we've said previously. It's frustrating, but it's not usually a big bill. It's not usually that expensive as a minimum.

If it's straightforward, if there's no. No, and the amounts that you need, the younger you are as well, that's interesting. Like the younger, the lower the amounts you typically need, because what you do when you're thinking about how much cover you need is you think about big things like, what keeps in it? What would you do? The mortgage, would you like that to be paid off? Okay, that's a figure. But actually how would you pay for everything else? You know, some people do a calculation like 10 times salary because if I, if the person, if I earn 20 grand a year, then I'll get 200 grand's cover because if my partner put that into investments, it would pay off like, it's rough and ready, but 20 grand a year at best. It probably wouldn't pay off less.

But how much do I need so that I can replace your income or what are the big things I would do? And the younger you are, the lower that tends to be because you've not got kids, you've not got big expenses. the house is probably smaller and your incomes are smaller. That is also another reminder is why you need to review it because if your life insurance is still connected to the numbers that were involved in your first house purchase and your six, seven, eight years on, then has your life changing?

Do you need to cover more? So it is like a handy reminder that these like 18 months or two year reviews on your policies, even just like just checking in with them going, yeah, yeah, they're fine. At the beginning, the person at the beginning dilemma didn't actually know who the beneficiary was. on the life insurance.

That it's completely normal. This paperwork is boring and it's in the drawer or it's in your emails. So have a little look. But definitely like speak with your mortgage advisor. Get this life insurance in place. And any other protections? I think the other thing, the three that I always think of are income protection,

criticalness cover and life insurance. And I workshop what you would do in each of those scenarios. So for income protection, you think about if one of us couldn't work for a period of time. it could be like, you know, if you're a builder, you've got a back problem, or if you're a hairdresser and you suddenly have nerve damage in your neck, like you can't work and that's your only source of income. There's some really good protection policies that can substitute your income or a portion of income for a period of time. So certain jobs make sense, especially if you've not got emergency funds to look at that kind of insurance. Critical illness cover. I love critical illness cover for especially people that live on their own. Because if you get diagnosed with the serious, illness, I want like that peace of mind that I can take time off work. I've got a chunk of money that if I need to pay, to feel better, to go on holiday after this, to pay my bills, why I'm recovering, whatever it is. That's for me. It means I don't have to sacrifice my lifestyle.

I don't have to do anything while I concentrate on getting better. And then obviously life insurance if you've got someone that depends on you to keep going. Those are the magic three. And just I, I know I sleep better at night knowing that my family has certain protections in place. And I would hate to think that someone had newly bought a house and got the forms and thought about it and felt that, oh, it's tight. This budget is tight. Oh my God, look at that lamp. We've all been there. This is not a judgment call.

It's just to do it and review it. When I look at my budget now, I've got like loads of lines of fixed expenses. And it just feels like a subscription. description. Like my critical illness cover and life insurance just comes under like Netflix. I don't see it as like a, oh, life insurance. I just go, oh, life insurance. When I check for my budget every month, I'm like Spotify, Netflix. I think it's actually doing it. I think choosing the amount you need and how long for can be overwhelming. I think we're looking. Because we're looking because we've got each other to like bat it around. But that's why chatting it through helps.

Because typically once you've done it once, other than just rechecking in. That's for me. mine's set and gone. Yeah. Like investing. Set and gone. Set and gone. Yeah. Derek Debt.

But congratulations on buying the home. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exciting. I am picturing them sat on the floor. Yeah.

Pieces. Wine. Like mattress on floor. Yeah. Bed's not arriving. Couch isn't arriving because we didn't order it quickly. It's not glamorous, is it?

The first few days are moving in. Yeah. Campion chairs. Oh, do you know the most annoying thing about moving home? Wi-Fi. Yeah. Trying to get the Wi-Fi set up. Like,

in the 24th. It was the 21st century. Like, I'm sure, I'm sure, stuff like that. But we were on the train this week and we were like this fucking Wi-Fi. And actually know the CEO of Purple Wi-Fi as well. I've met him a couple times. I'm sure he wouldn't know who I am, but I have met him. And every time I see him, I feel like going, why is the Wi-Fi is so bad?

And the trains, it's got worse in 20 years. I've been getting the train to London. Like, why is it so bad? It's actually got worse. Who knew? The Wi-Fi going into your new home. I've never understood why it takes so long to start. We'll be with you in three months.

Yeah. Okay, that is all for this episode. The Vault is now closed. Just a quick disclaimer, this is just a chat around life and money topics. We're not giving financial advice.