Writing your Life Insurance in Trust

To make sure your dependents get the money as quickly as possible in the event of your untimely death, you can arrange for your Life Insurance policy to be ‘written in trust’.

This means the payout will be managed by a group of trustees appointed by you. They will manage the allocation of money from this trust to your appointed beneficiaries and you can provide the trustees with some guidance with a letter of wishes addressed to them.

There are several advantages of doing this, which include:

• the protection of this money from inheritance taxation
• the use of a trust stops the funds becoming part of your beneficiaries’ estate and reduces inheritance tax in the same way upon their death
• the trust can be used to protect funds from beneficiaries who, for whatever reason, are unable to manage this money themselves, for example if they are too young.

Please be aware that there are special considerations for joint life policies. If a joint life policy is in trust and one of the lives insured were to die the policy sum insured would go to the beneficiaries nominated in the trust and not to the surviving life insured. If this is not what you require then placing your joint life policy in trust may not be the right option for you.

Setting up a policy so that payment will be made into Trust is simple. Contact us at eLife to discuss this option in detail.

Please note that if the benefit is paid out in the event of terminal illness, then it cannot be paid into Trust and can only be paid directly to the person insured.

Life Policy Trust

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Letter Of Wishes

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Life Policy Trust Guidance

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Signing Guide For Trusts

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Trustee Powers

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