Life insurance
Life insurance by age: how likely a claim really is
Age is what moves the cost of cover more than anything else. Here is the reason, in the official figures: the odds of a claim at each age.
Independent site, not an insurer, broker or government service: benefit claims are made only on GOV.UK.
Chance a term policy pays out
Example, not your result yet· change a figure to see yours
Pays out in
8.0%
| Ends with no claim | 92% |
| Odds | 1 in 12 |
| Policy ends at | age 60 |
| Life expectancy now | 45.2 years |
ONS national life tables 2022-2024, whole population. Insurers price on their own data.
People search for the cost of life insurance by age because premiums climb steeply from the forties onward. The cause is the risk the insurer is pricing, and that risk is public. On the ONS national life tables for 2022 to 2024, a man who takes out a 25-year policy at 30 has a 5.5% chance of dying within the term. At 40 the same policy carries a 12% chance, and at 50 it is 25%. A woman of 40 starts at 7.6%. Every ten years of waiting roughly doubles the odds for a term of the same length, which is why the same cover bought later costs more each month. This page does not invent an average premium: no insurer publishes reusable prices. It gives the odds, so a quote can be read against them.
Rates read and sums checked by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · How the figures are worked out
The odds at each age
The table chains the yearly death rates of the ONS national life tables over ten and twenty years. A rate of a few in a thousand in a single year becomes several percent over two decades, and the curve bends upwards: from 35 to 45, the twenty-year figure for men grows 2.1 times. That bend is what you see in quotes as you get older, before any question about health or smoking is asked.
| Age at start | 10 years, men | 10 years, women | 20 years, men | 20 years, women | Life expectancy, men | Women |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 | 0.58% | 0.26% | 1.7% | 0.84% | 59.7 | 63.5 |
| 25 | 0.76% | 0.36% | 2.4% | 1.3% | 54.9 | 58.5 |
| 30 | 1.1% | 0.59% | 3.4% | 2.0% | 50.0 | 53.6 |
| 35 | 1.6% | 0.94% | 5.1% | 3.1% | 45.2 | 48.7 |
| 40 | 2.4% | 1.4% | 7.4% | 4.7% | 40.5 | 43.9 |
| 45 | 3.5% | 2.2% | 11% | 7.0% | 35.9 | 39.1 |
| 50 | 5.2% | 3.3% | 16% | 11% | 31.4 | 34.5 |
| 55 | 7.5% | 5.0% | 24% | 16% | 27.0 | 29.9 |
| 60 | 11% | 7.7% | 35% | 25% | 22.8 | 25.5 |
| 65 | 18% | 12% | 52% | 41% | 18.7 | 21.2 |
Why this is not a price list
Insurers start from tables like these, then replace them with their own experience of the people they cover, who are on average healthier than the whole population. They add their expenses, the commission of whoever sold the policy, a margin for profit and a loading for anything in your answers that raises the risk. None of those adjustments is published in a form that may be reused, and the averages printed on broker pages give no method. So the figures above tell you how the risk moves, not what anyone will charge.
They are still useful when a quote arrives. If one insurer’s monthly price for a 20-year term doubles between two ages ten years apart, the table shows that the risk itself does roughly the same, so the jump is not a penalty. And if the cover is only needed for the years a mortgage or young children depend on you, a shorter term at a lower risk may do the job.
Where you live
The ONS publishes the same tables for each nation, and the gaps are real. Chosen in the tool, Scotland gives a man of 35 taking a 25-year term a 11% chance of a claim against 7.7% in England. Wales gives 9.3% and Northern Ireland 7.9%. Insurers price the whole country alike, so the difference does not appear in a quote, but it is part of why the population figures are only a starting point.
Reading the figures safely
Period tables apply today’s death rates to the future. If death rates fall over the coming decades, the real odds over a long term will be lower than shown; if they rise, higher. The tables count every death, from any cause, so they also include people who would not be offered standard cover. Use them as an upper guide for a healthy applicant, and as a reason to size the term to the need rather than to buy as long a policy as possible.
The life cover calculator uses the same rates to show the odds for the amount and the term it suggests.