Single Life, Joint Life and Menu Plans – What are the best options from a consumer perspective? – Forum recap part 1
The latest Protection Forum explored the best consumer options among single life, joint life, and menu plans, featuring insights from experts Zoe Priselac, Colin Baxter, and Emma Astley.
Zoe highlighted that single life policies offer critical flexibility, ensuring coverage even if health or relationship circumstances change. Colin echoed this view, advocating for single policies in trust to provide more secure, individualised protection. Emma reinforced these points by sharing cases where joint policies left families uninsured after a critical illness claim.
Menu plans were praised for their adaptability, allowing clients to customise coverage across multiple benefits. The panel also noted challenges in joint policy separations, particularly in cases of abuse, and called for compliance practices to better address evolving family dynamics.
The session ended with a lively Q&A, encouraging advisers to prioritise flexible, consumer-focused solutions.
Explore the key quotes below to dive deeper into the discussion…
“Really, there’s no kind of one-size-fits-all with this. When we’re looking at single or joint, you do have to look at the client’s individual circumstances, take them through the options, pros, and cons. But I certainly do think that there is a good argument to potentially have a default starting position of joint. And also, what can come into it is compliance, particularly if you’re part of a network.”
“One of the big issues with having joint cover is when couples split up and separate…you would have to use the separation benefit. That needs to be if somebody is getting divorced or if there’s a remortgage…Now, just to note, Royal London doesn’t have those specific circumstances or a timeframe. You can actually request that at any point which is useful.”
“The last thing you want is to do a joint policy for clients where one has chronic conditions, then the other partner claims, and now the individual is left without cover and may be uninsurable.”
“Another real positive for having separate policies is that despite it being double the cover, it’s not double the price.”
“If it’s a joint policy, it pays out to the other person upon first death, not into trust—meaning half of that value could form part of the estate, potentially triggering inheritance tax.”
Click the audio playback below to listen to the full session.
Full session audio
“The way that myself and my business work is every client we see, we do a mini protection questionnaire at the end of the full questionnaire…The only joint cover I tend to do is occasionally for married couples, I will do joint decreasing life cover to cover single debt. But just for me, it’s covering a single debt and some couples actually prefer that.”
“Huge fan of menu plans. One of the things that Zoe mentioned about the underwriting for me is a real plus with menu plans…you can effectively get one level playing field of underwriting across a number of plans…if there is a health issue and you’ve got an insurer who’s got a level playing field, it gives you a better chance of getting the full set of cover.”
“I never write level cover on decreasing mortgages. The only joint cover I tend to do is for married couples, covering a single debt. Otherwise, it’s single policies in trust.”
“All my advice is based on benefits and claims. We don’t advise on cost alone—clients need the full protection, and most of them understand that.”
“With menu plans, you get the flexibility to make changes. You can separate policies or remove a plan if circumstances change.”
“When I’m recommending products to my clients, I always think, put your claims head on because I dread to think what would happen if our clients needed to claim…In a recent example, a couple contacted me as they wanted to review the current cover as they had decreased the mortgage by £85K…He’d had a cardiac arrest but thought he wasn’t covered as his policy only covered heart attacks.”
“The point of sharing this claim story is to show, as advisors, we can look at potentially protecting families further with the right protection…In the event of a joint policy claim, it leaves both parties uninsured. Mrs. would have been still covered if they had single policies.”
“A joint life and critical illness policy left the partner uninsured after a claim, with the claimant also now uninsured for life cover. That’s the reality.”
“We’d like to think that clients get claims support from the advisor who sold the cover, but too often I’m handling claims for clients who were advised elsewhere.”
“In one example, a couple had a joint policy for £33 per month. Single plans for them would have cost just £36 —about a £3 difference for double the coverage.”
“One client had to separate her joint policy from her ex-partner due to an abusive relationship—it took nearly six months to get it sorted.”
