Buying protection insurance: advisers, brokers and going direct

Life insurance can be bought in several ways, and the route you choose changes who helps you, what you pay for that help and how wide the choice of policies is. Citizens Advice sets out the basic options for protection insurance: buy from an independent financial adviser, who may charge a fee, or buy directly from an insurance company¹. Between those two sit specialist brokers, such as a firm that focuses exclusively on life insurance and has direct contact with insurers' underwriters², and the high street banks, which sell life insurance alongside their accounts and mortgages.

What no route changes is the product itself. A life insurance policy is a contract that pays an agreed sum of money to people you choose, your beneficiaries, if you die while the policy is in force³. There is no fixed price: premiums depend on your age, health, lifestyle, how much cover you need, the policy type, your family health history, the term length and your job³. Unlike car insurance, life insurance is not a legal requirement, and you do not have to have it in place to get a mortgage⁴. What a bank or broker adds on top, sometimes a cashback or gift card reward, is a marketing offer, not part of the cover, and this page explains how those offers work and where they stop.

Four ways to buy life insurance

The first route is direct from an insurance company. Citizens Advice lists this alongside advice as a standard way to buy protection cover: you deal with the insurer yourself, without an intermediary¹. This suits someone who already knows what type and amount of cover they want, perhaps after reading up on how life insurance works and how much cover they need. The choice is limited to that insurer's own products, and the insurer's staff will not recommend a competitor's cheaper or better-suited policy.

The second is an independent financial adviser. Advice may cost money, as Citizens Advice notes¹, but an adviser assesses your circumstances and recommends a policy from across the market. This matters most where health is complicated. Which? advises people with diabetes, for example, that they should seek professional advice and will likely need a policy from a specialist provider², and the same logic applies to other pre-existing medical conditions.

The third is a broker. A specialist life insurance broker such as LifeSearch focuses exclusively on this product and has direct contact with underwriters, the people who decide the price and terms². Brokers are typically paid commission by the insurer rather than by you, and they can search across several insurers on your behalf.

The fourth is your bank. High street banks sell life insurance as part of their wider relationship with customers, often alongside a mortgage, and several run reward offers to attract buyers. The sections below cover this route in detail, because it is the one with the most strings attached. Whichever route you use, the underlying decision is the same: which type of policy, how much cover, and what it costs. Term life insurance, whole of life insurance and over 50s plans work very differently, and the route you buy through does not change those fundamentals.

Buying through a bank: the insurer behind the policy

When you buy life insurance from a bank, the bank is usually the seller, not the insurer. The policy is underwritten by an insurance company behind the brand, and it is that company that pays a claim. Lloyds Bank, for example, sells protection policies underwritten by Scottish Widows, and runs a reward offer on them: customers buying eligible policies from 16 June 2025 receive a 12-month Disney+ Standard With Ads subscription after their first monthly payment, until the offer is withdrawn¹¹. Halifax runs the same arrangement, with customers buying a qualifying policy online, by phone or video, or in branch from 16 June 2025 receiving the same subscription after their first monthly payment¹².

This matters when you need to claim. A life insurance policy is a document that explains the situations when the company will pay the money, how much will be given and who to contact, and a claim is made with the insurer named in it, not with the bank that sold it¹³. If you are claiming on a family member's policy, you contact their life insurance company to find out about the policy and how to make a claim¹³. The bank's role ends once the sale is complete.

It also matters for what happens later. If the bank changes its reward offer, withdraws it or stops selling the policy, the cover itself continues on the insurer's terms. Conversely, the fact that you bought through a bank gives you no special protection beyond the standard rules that apply to all insurance sales: the same duty to answer the insurer's questions honestly, the same claims process, and the same position if the insurer runs into difficulty, covered in is my life insurance protected if the insurer fails?.

Cashback and reward offers: £100 to £150

Banks and insurers compete for life insurance buyers with rewards as well as prices. The offers around at the moment give a sense of the scale. Barclays has run a voucher offer on its Simple Life Insurance and life insurance for mortgage holders: the offer period for quoting opened on 1 September 2025 and runs to 31 August 2026¹⁴. It has also opened a cash reward offer, with the offer period beginning on 8 September 2026⁷. Post Office offers a £100 gift card, or an experience worth up to £200, for buying its Life Insurance⁶. Lloyds Bank and Halifax offer the 12-month Disney+ subscription described above¹¹.

These are marketing incentives, paid by the seller, and they are not part of the insurance. Nothing in the policy document changes because a reward was attached: the payout on death, the exclusions and the premium are all set by the insurer on the same terms as for a buyer who received nothing. A reward also arrives once, while the premium is paid every month for the length of the policy, which is why a modest difference in premium usually outweighs the incentive over time.

The offers are also conditional. Post Office's reward is subject to minimum premiums and a 180-day qualifying period⁶, and the bank offers carry their own conditions on when the policy must start, how long it must be kept and who is excluded, covered in the next two sections. Treat any headline figure as the best case, not a guarantee, and read the offer's own terms page before counting on it.

Who qualifies for a bank's life insurance reward

Reward offers exclude certain buyers, and the exclusions are where most disappointment comes from. Barclays' Life Insurance Reward Offer excludes people who already hold its policies, but its own pages state this in two different ways: one says you must not have held a Barclays life insurance policy within the last 12 months, another says you are not eligible if you cancelled a policy within 12 months of the offer starting, that is after 8 September 2025¹⁴.

Other conditions are about the purchase itself. The Barclays reward requires an application submitted by 25 November 2026⁷. Post Office's reward is subject to minimum premiums, so a very small policy may not qualify, and to a 180-day qualifying period⁶. The Lloyds Bank and Halifax Disney+ offers require a first monthly payment to have been made before the subscription is provided¹¹, so a policy that is bought but never starts pays nothing.

Eligibility for the underlying insurance is separate and stricter. Insurers price and accept customers based on age, health and lifestyle⁴, and they are legally entitled to refuse cover where the medical prognosis is that you will die during the policy term, because they cannot cover certainties¹⁵. Someone with a serious pre-existing condition may need a specialist provider, and Which? advises seeking professional advice in those circumstances². Qualifying for the reward is worthless if the policy itself is unsuitable or unaffordable, so the insurance decision comes first.

A reward is paid months after you buy, not at the start

None of these rewards arrives on day one. The Barclays cash reward works on a timeline: the application must be in by 25 November 2026, the policy must start within six months of the application, the policy must be kept for at least twelve months with all monthly payments made, and the reward is then paid within three months of all the criteria being met⁷. In practice that means well over a year can pass between applying and seeing the money.

Post Office's 180-day qualifying period works the same way: the reward follows the purchase by roughly six months, provided the policy is still in force and the premiums still being paid⁶. The Disney+ offers are the quickest, arriving after the first monthly payment¹¹, but even they are not instant.

This delay interacts with your cooling-off rights. For life insurance bought at a distance, you have 30 days from when you are told the provider has agreed to accept you for cover to change your mind⁸. A reward that arrives months later cannot be a reason to keep a policy you have already decided is wrong. If the cover does not suit you, cancel within the cooling-off window and treat the reward as forfeited, because it was never yours to keep.

Where the reward is lost: cancelling early or holding a recent policy

The conditions in the previous section are also the ways the reward is lost. Cancelling the policy inside the twelve-month period, or missing a monthly payment, means the Barclays criteria are never met and the reward is not paid⁷. The same is true of Post Office's 180-day qualifying period⁶. And as set out above, holding or having recently held a policy with the same bank can exclude you from its offer altogether, in Barclays' case under terms its own pages state in two conflicting ways¹⁴.

Cancelling life insurance has consequences beyond the reward. Most life insurance policies have no cash-in value: if you have to stop paying later because you cannot afford it, that is lost money⁹. If you cancel, the policy simply stops and you do not get any money back¹⁶. Only certain whole-of-life policies have a surrender value, and even then the payment, based on how the underlying investment has performed, is often less than the premiums paid³.

Where a policy is being replaced rather than simply stopped, the order of the two steps matters. Which? states that an old policy should not be cancelled until the new policy is in place⁹, because a gap in cover cannot be undone, and a new policy is underwritten on the applicant's health at the time they apply. The pages on missed premiums and lapsed cover and changing your cover cover the alternatives to cancelling outright.

Joint policies and customers with more than one account

Joint life insurance is one policy covering two people, typically a couple, and it pays out on the death of the first policyholder during the term, after which the policy ends and does not cover the surviving partner¹⁰. The main disadvantage is that you get only the single payment per policy, even if the worst happens and both policyholders die during the term¹⁰. Because there is only going to be one payout, joint policies are usually slightly cheaper than each partner buying an individual policy, though the price difference is often very small¹⁷.

For reward purposes, a joint policy is one purchase. An offer attached to buying and keeping a policy pays once per policy, not once per person, so a couple cannot double the reward by holding a joint policy. Two single policies are two purchases and may each qualify under an offer's terms, though each must separately meet the conditions on starting, keeping and paying.

Holding more than one policy is perfectly normal. It is common to have multiple life insurance policies, for different purposes or to increase cover¹³, and you can have a joint policy and a single policy at the same time, or more than one policy with the same company or with different providers⁹. One rule comes with this: you must tell each insurer about the life insurance you already hold³. A customer with accounts at more than one bank can in principle buy, and qualify for a reward on, a policy at each, provided each offer's own exclusions about recently held policies are met.

Offers close on a fixed date or can be withdrawn at any time

Reward offers are time-limited, and the dates are set out in the terms. Barclays' voucher offer closed to new quotes on 31 August 2026¹⁴. Its cash reward offer opened on 8 September 2026 and applications must be submitted by 25 November 2026⁷. Post Office's gift card and experience reward ends on 30 April 2027⁶. The Lloyds Bank and Halifax Disney+ offers run from 16 June 2025 until withdrawn, with no fixed end date announced¹¹.

An offer with no fixed end date can still disappear at any time, because the bank has said so in advance. An offer with a fixed end date can also close early if the terms allow it, and a bank can change the conditions while the offer is running. The only reliable protection is the date on which you applied and the version of the terms you agreed to at that moment, so it is worth saving a copy of the offer page when you apply.

None of this affects the insurance. If an offer is withdrawn the day after you buy, the policy you bought continues on its own terms, and a withdrawal of the reward is not grounds to cancel the policy for a refund. The reward is a separate promise from the seller, made on conditions, and the cover is the contract with the insurer. Judge them separately, and if the reward was the main reason for buying, that is a sign the cover itself had not been compared properly.

Comparing the cover, not the incentive

A reward is a one-off payment; a premium is paid every month, often for decades. Which? notes that life insurance policies bundled with mortgage lenders were rarely good value, and that it is always recommended that you at least shop around and consider buying life insurance separately⁴. The same principle applies to bank rewards: a £100 gift card⁶ cannot compensate for a premium that is meaningfully higher than the market offers for the same cover, and premiums are based on your age, health and lifestyle⁴, so the price you are quoted is personal to you.

Compare the policy terms, not just the price. Term insurance pays out only if you die within a certain timeframe, while whole-of-life cover pays out whenever you die and is more expensive¹³. Over 50s life insurance, often marketed with guaranteed acceptance, often pays out less than you have paid in premiums, and Which? does not recommend this kind of product¹⁶. Policies typically exclude suicide claims in the first one or two years³. Many policies include terminal illness benefit, paying out early if a doctor says you have less than 12 months to live¹⁵. These differences decide whether the policy does what your family needs; the reward does not come into it.

Two further decisions sit alongside the purchase. Writing a life insurance policy in trust is normally free and can be done during the application with most insurers, and it controls who receives the money¹⁹. And if you are replacing existing cover rather than buying new, never cancel the old policy until the new one is in place⁹. The pages on how life insurance premiums are worked out and applying and underwriting cover what happens after you choose.

Where to get help

Free, impartial help is available at every stage of buying protection insurance. Citizens Advice explains the ways to buy and your consumer rights with insurance¹, and MoneyHelper, the government-backed money guidance service, offers free guidance on protection and on dealing with banks. Neither recommends a specific policy, but both can help you understand what you are being sold and what it should cost.

If your circumstances are complicated, by a medical condition or by the amount of cover you need, paid advice may earn its fee. Which? advises people with diabetes to seek professional advice and expect to need a specialist provider², and the same applies to other pre-existing conditions, covered in getting cover with a pre-existing medical condition. A specialist broker can approach several insurers' underwriters on your behalf².

If something goes wrong with a sale, a policy or a reward, complain first to the firm, and if it does not resolve the matter, take it to the Financial Ombudsman Service, which deals with complaints about insurance and about firms that sell it. The main section of this site, protection insurance: a complete guide, links to every part of the subject, from claiming after a death to tax on payouts.