NFU Mutual life insurance review 2026

Here’s how NFU Mutual is rated by customers and by independent experts. The Trustpilot and Smart Money People scores cover NFU Mutual as a whole, so they reflect its service across all its products, while Fairer Finance rates NFU Mutual’s life insurance. Defaqto rates the Aviva policies NFU Mutual sells.

Defaqto ratings for the Aviva policies NFU Mutual sells

NFU Mutual’s Term Assurance, Critical Illness Cover, Income Protection and Whole of Life Cover are Aviva’s Life Insurance+, Critical Illness+, Income Protection+ and Whole of Life Insurance+. Defaqto lists them under Aviva Life & Pensions UK Limited, with the product names shown below.

Put together, the Aviva policies NFU Mutual sells have 5 stars from Defaqto, apart from Whole of Life Insurance+ with 4 stars. Customer scores for NFU Mutual as a whole are 4.0 out of 5 on Trustpilot and 4.58 out of 5 on Smart Money People, and Fairer Finance gives its life insurance 76%.

NFU Mutual’s own awards page shows its ratings for home, car and business insurance rather than for life cover.

Headline scores only tell part of the story, so it’s worth reading a selection of recent reviews as well.

NFU Mutual sells four Aviva policies, with advice or through its non-advised phone service: Term Assurance (Aviva Life Insurance+), Critical Illness Cover (Aviva Critical Illness+), Income Protection (Aviva Income Protection+) and Whole of Life Cover (Aviva Whole of Life Insurance+). It also offers business protection, such as Relevant Life Insurance.

• Level term
  With Life Insurance+ level cover, the lump sum stays the same throughout the policy term.
• Decreasing term
  The cover goes down every month at a rate set when you apply, usually to roughly keep track with a repayment mortgage.
• Family income
  Instead of a lump sum, Life Insurance+ can pay equal monthly amounts until the end of the policy term.
• Critical illness
  Critical Illness+ covers 33 conditions, two additional conditions and children’s benefit as standard. It doesn’t pay out on death.
• Income protection
  Income Protection+ pays a monthly income if you can’t work because of illness or injury, after a deferred period of 4 to 104 weeks.
• Whole of life
  Whole of Life Insurance+ pays a lump sum whenever you die, with guaranteed premiums unless you choose increasing cover.

Term Assurance (Aviva Life Insurance+)

You choose level cover, decreasing cover or family income cover. Level cover pays a lump sum that stays the same, decreasing cover goes down every month at a rate set when you apply, and family income cover pays equal monthly amounts until the end of the term. You can add fixed increasing cover, of 3% or 5% a year, to level or family income cover, or index-linked increasing cover, in line with the Retail Prices Index (RPI) up to 10% a year, to level cover.

NFU Mutual says terms run from 1 to 50 years and the policy can be taken out from 18 to 89, with a minimum cover of £50,000 from age 78; it must end before your 91st birthday. Aviva’s policy summary says the term can be set in whole years or to a specific age, and gives a maximum starting age of 77 for life-only cover below £50,000, and 64 for life and critical illness cover, which must end by 75 with guaranteed premiums or 90 with reviewable premiums. You and the person covered must be in the UK, the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man or Gibraltar, with a legal right to live there.

Life cover has guaranteed premiums. With life and critical illness cover you can choose guaranteed or reviewable premiums; reviewable premiums are reviewed every five years and are only offered monthly. Life and critical illness cover includes 32 critical illness conditions, two additional conditions and children’s benefit as standard, and pays the full cover amount if you survive at least 10 days after diagnosis.

Depending on the definition, a critical illness may pay on diagnosis, once it reaches a specified severity or when named treatments or surgeries are carried out, and the definitions limit the cover: for example, some types of cancer aren’t covered. With level or decreasing cover, a claim for one of the two additional conditions, less advanced breast or prostate cancer, pays £25,000 or 25% of your cover, whichever is lower, and the policy carries on.

Critical Illness Cover (Aviva Critical Illness+)

Critical Illness+ pays a lump sum or a monthly amount if you’re diagnosed with one of its listed critical illnesses during the term and survive at least 10 days, and it doesn’t pay out if you die. It covers 33 critical illness conditions, two additional conditions and children’s benefit as standard, for one person or two, and the cover can stay the same, increase or decrease over the term.

You can apply from age 18. With guaranteed premiums the maximum age to apply is 64 and the cover must end by 75; with reviewable premiums it can run to 90. Terms run from 5 to 50 years.

Income Protection (Aviva Income Protection+)

Income Protection+ pays a monthly benefit if you can’t work because of illness or injury. You choose a deferred period of 4, 8, 13, 26, 52 or 104 weeks, and whether the benefit is paid for as long as you can’t work (full cover to term) or for up to 24 months per claim (limited payment term). There’s no limit on the number of claims, and benefit is paid monthly in arrears, starting a month after the deferred period ends.

The most you can insure is 65% of the first £60,000 you earn plus 45% of earnings above that, up to £240,000 a year. You need to be 18 to 59, working as an employee or self-employed, and to have worked for at least the last 12 months. Policies run for 5 to 52 years, can’t end before you’re 50 and must end before your 71st birthday. State benefits and investment income aren’t taken off your benefit, and under Aviva’s benefit guarantee your benefit won’t necessarily fall if your salary goes down after you take out the policy.

Waiver of premium, hospital benefit, trauma benefit and back to work benefit are included at no extra cost, and you can choose guaranteed or reviewable premiums. A longer deferred period means a cheaper premium but a longer wait for the benefit. Aviva has special arrangements for doctors, surgeons, nurses and midwives employed directly by the NHS: with a 52-week deferred period, they start getting some benefit as soon as their NHS sick pay goes down. If you can’t work, Aviva asks you to tell it before you’ve been off for two months, or one month with a 4-week deferred period.

Whole of Life Cover (Aviva Whole of Life Insurance+)

Whole of Life Insurance+ pays a lump sum when you die, whenever that is, and NFU Mutual presents it as a way to leave a legacy or help your family pay an inheritance tax bill. You can apply from 18 to 85, or up to 64 if you add waiver of premium, for yourself or as a joint policy that pays on the first or second death; on a joint policy the maximum age applies to the older person.

Premiums are guaranteed unless you choose increasing cover or change the policy, and you pay them by direct debit, monthly or yearly. Increasing cover rises by 3% or 5% a year, or with RPI up to 10%, and premiums then rise by twice the percentage increase in cover. Because you pay premiums for as long as the cover lasts, the total you pay could be more than the payout.

Business protection

For businesses, NFU Mutual offers protection covers with Aviva Life & Pensions UK Limited, including Relevant Life Insurance, which pays a lump sum to an employee’s family if they die.

Older NFU Mutual policies

NFU Mutual still supports customers with life cover and protection policies it no longer sells. They include NFU Mutual Level Term Assurance, Mortgage Term Assurance (decreasing cover linked to a mortgage), Special Temporary Assurance, Convertible Term Assurance, which gives the option to take out a Whole of Life policy without further medical underwriting, and an NFU Mutual Whole of Life policy whose payout is a guaranteed amount plus any bonuses added. On its older critical illness policies, the conditions covered depend on when the policy was taken out and are set out in the policy documents. Policies bought before April 2016 are administered by NFU Mutual.

Life Insurance+ life cover vs life and critical illness cover

NFU Mutual’s Term Assurance can be life cover or life and critical illness cover. Both include terminal illness cover, but the age limits, premiums and extra benefits differ. Here’s how the two compare:

NFU Mutual policies at a glance

The key limits for the four Aviva policies NFU Mutual sells. The cover you’re offered depends on your circumstances and Aviva’s assessment.

Depending on the policy, you may be eligible for these benefits at no extra cost:

You can also pay more to add extra benefits, including:

NFU Mutual’s own published claims figure, 96% for 2025, is for General Insurance claims, not life cover. Its life policies are provided by Aviva, which has published its individual protection claims figures for 2025. Aviva’s 2025 figures combine Aviva’s own policies with Aviva Protection UK (formerly AIG Life) policies, and the life figures include Over 50s plans and terminal illness payments. For 2025, Aviva reported:

Aviva life and terminal illness claims accepted

98.7%

Aviva critical illness claims paid

90.7%

Aviva income protection claims accepted

90%

Paid by Aviva in life and terminal illness claims

£860.7m

Source: Aviva’s published individual protection claims figures for 2025, covering all Aviva and Aviva Protection UK policies, not only those sold through NFU Mutual. Critical illness figures include children’s benefit and total permanent disability.

Across all individual protection policies, Aviva paid more than 51,000 claims totalling over £1.3 billion in 2025, accepting 96.9% of the claims it received. That included 40,277 life and terminal illness claims worth £860,665,410, £388,556,567 across 5,586 critical illness, children’s benefit and total permanent disability claims, and just over £63.5 million in income protection benefits to around 4,100 claimants.

Aviva says misrepresentation of health and lifestyle information was the leading reason it declined life claims, and most critical illness claims it couldn’t pay were because the diagnosis didn’t meet the policy definition.

Answering every question fully and honestly when you apply helps make sure your policy pays out when it’s needed.

How to make an NFU Mutual life insurance claim

Who you contact depends on when the policy was bought. NFU Mutual says policies bought before April 2016 are administered by NFU Mutual, policies bought between 1 August 2016 and 9 November 2025 by Aviva Protection UK Limited (formerly AIG), and policies bought after 9 November 2025 by Aviva Life & Pensions UK Limited. It helps to have the full name, the plan or policy number, the date of death or diagnosis and, for a critical illness claim, the medical condition.

For a policy administered by NFU Mutual, the person claiming should contact NFU Mutual as soon as possible: by phone on 0800 622 323 (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm), by post to Financial Services, NFU Mutual, Tiddington Road, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, CV37 7BJ, or by email to Life_Claims_Mailbox@nfumutual.co.uk to report a death or Life_CIC_Mailbox@nfumutual.co.uk for a critical illness claim. NFU Mutual also has an online form for reporting a death, after which its claims team gets in touch to explain what happens next.

For policies bought between 1 August 2016 and 9 November 2025, NFU Mutual gives the Aviva Protection UK claims line, 0345 600 6815, and claimsteam@protection.aviva.com. Aviva Protection UK’s business moved to Aviva Life & Pensions UK Limited on 31 December 2025, and Aviva’s own claims pages now describe these as policies through Aviva Life & Pensions UK Limited. They give the same number for death, critical or terminal illness and income protection claims, open Monday to Thursday 8:30am to 6pm and Friday 8:30am to 5:30pm (0044 1737 441 815 from overseas). Their policy numbers are usually a ‘P’ followed by nine numbers, and they can’t be viewed on MyAviva.

For policies bought after 9 November 2025, you can start a claim online on Aviva’s website, or call 0800 158 3105 for income protection claims and 0800 015 1142 for all other claims (Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm; +44 1603 603 277 from outside the UK).

Key policy terms

A few terms that are worth knowing before you apply. Most come from Aviva’s policy summaries and conditions, which NFU Mutual links from its product pages; always check the documents for the exact policy you’re offered.

Before you take out a policy, it’s worth reading the policy summary and policy conditions for the exact product you’re offered. NFU Mutual links these Aviva documents from its product pages.

• PDF
  Life Insurance+ policy summary (AL50001) (opens in a new tab)

  Term Assurance: cover types, included benefits, extras you can add and the age limits.

  PDF · nfumutual.co.uk

• PDF
  Life Insurance+ policy conditions (AL50002) (opens in a new tab)

  The full terms of the Life Insurance+ contract with Aviva Life & Pensions UK Limited.

  PDF · nfumutual.co.uk

• PDF
  Critical Illness+ policy summary (AL51001) (opens in a new tab)

  The conditions covered, children’s benefit, premiums and the age limits.

  PDF · nfumutual.co.uk

• PDF
  Critical Illness+ policy conditions (AL51002) (opens in a new tab)

  The full terms of Critical Illness+, including the definitions of each condition.

  PDF · nfumutual.co.uk

• PDF
  Income Protection+ policy summary (AL52001) (opens in a new tab)

  How much benefit you can get, deferred periods, included benefits and when payments stop.

  PDF · nfumutual.co.uk

• PDF
  Income Protection+ policy conditions (AL52002) (opens in a new tab)

  The full terms of Income Protection+, including how incapacity is assessed.

  PDF · nfumutual.co.uk

• PDF
  Whole of Life Insurance+ policy summary (AL50007) (opens in a new tab)

  How Whole of Life Insurance+ works, including increasing cover, premiums and the extra benefits.

  PDF · nfumutual.co.uk

• PDF
  Whole of Life Insurance+ policy conditions (AL50008) (opens in a new tab)

  The full terms of Whole of Life Insurance+, from Aviva’s document library.

  PDF · aviva.io

• PDF
  NFU Mutual Financial Planning Terms of Business (opens in a new tab)

  NFU Mutual’s advised, non-advised and direct services, how it’s paid and who it acts for.

  PDF · nfumutual.co.uk

Documents are published by NFU Mutual and Aviva. NFU Mutual’s Whole of Life Cover page links to the Life Insurance+ policy conditions, so the Whole of Life Insurance+ conditions above are from Aviva’s website. The documents may be updated — the version you receive with your policy is the one that applies.

This review is for general information only. Life Cover Quotes does not endorse any specific insurance company.