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Life expectancy in England is currently 77 for men and 82 for women. We are healthier and living longer than ever before. All this is in spite of a rise in obesity, heart disease and cancer. Maybe because death seems so far away for most of us, we don’t think about it. It’s not exactly a pleasant subject, so you can put off sorting your will and life insurance until later, when you’re old, right?  

We are a nation of procrastinators it seems, because around two thirds of us die without making a will. But what happens if you die without a will?  

Under the Law of Intestacy, the government will decide who inherits your possessions, property and money. If you are unmarried and without any close relatives, your estate will pass to the Crown, which I doubt is what you had in mind. 

We pay tax to drive, to work and to buy food and we even have to pay it when we die. However, if you write a will, you can greatly reduce the amount of inheritance tax you have to pay as some donations may be tax free.  

Although most people associate wills with old age, it is actually incredibly important for parents of young children to draft a will. If you die and your children are below the legal age at which they can live alone, the state will decide who will care for them. This means your children could be put into the care system. Even if you have a long-term partner, if you are not married then they cannot take legal responsibility for the children.   

It’s not just a will that is important in safeguarding your assets and loved ones when you die, life insurance should not be put off until it is too late either. Life insurance can pay for things such as a funeral, a mortgage or even a lump sum to your family to cover your loss of earnings.  

Going back to the start of this article, the number of life threatening diseases is on the rise. For example, one in three people that you know will be affected by cancer at some point in their life, and this could be you. Therefore when you take out life insurance, it may be worth buying critical illness cover too. Legal & General offer critical illness cover as an add-on to its standard insurance policies. This basically means you will get a lump sum if, heaven forbid, you are diagnosed with a life threatening disease. This will help to make the time at the end run a little more smoothly and will be less stressful for you and your loved ones.

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