I recently took a day off work to stay home with my sick daughter. I could not believe the amount of advertising on the TV about buying Life Insurance over the phone.

Don’t be fooled by all the advertising. There are way too many considerations to take into account to do it over the phone or even the internet. You need to see a financial adviser. They can assess you insurance needs and get the right quote for you. If you don’t see a financial adviser you may be under insured, which in the long run could be your family’s problem.

If you do buy one of these policies, the first thing I would question is the definitions and terms in the policy. You must ask what’s covered, how much am I covered for, how much are the premiums now and into the future, is the policy index linked and will keep up with inflation, what’s the claims process, any exclusions, just to name a few. They advertise they can insure you without a medical, but how can that be? Does this mean they limit what claims they can accept? Medicals can be daunting for clients obtaining insurance, but the process has merit by identifying any current medical issues that the insurance company cannot insure, and this improves your claims process. Our role is to ensure we maximise the probability of an insurance claim being paid.

It is generally believed that buying online is cheaper, but this may not be the case when it comes to life insurance. A properly planned policy by a financial adviser could be cheaper and offer better value than an online or over the phone policy. There is also the added advantage of knowing the policy has been designed for you and your family, with all your individual circumstances taken into consideration.

Life itself is so complicated and cannot be boxed, modelled or categorised and therefore needs individual advice for insurance.

Please consider this while you are home these holidays and don’t fall into the advertising trap.