Yorkshire Building Society Life Insurance Review 2023

Life and Critical Illness insurance is a must if you have a family who relies on you. We take a look at some of the popular products and providers on the market to give you a brief guide to their top policies and their customer feedback.

Yorkshire Building Society is the UK's second largest building society and has a long pedigree having originally been formed in 1864. Yorkshire Building Society is also an umbrella for other banking brands such as Norwich & Peterborough Building Society, the Chelsea Building Society and the savings company Egg. Life insurance products have been provided by partners AIG since 2018.

Yorkshire Building Society customers can choose Life Insurance or Critical 3 with Life, which incorporates their critical illness cover. The idea of Critical 3  with Life Insurance is that it provides a low cost critical illness insurance policy which  pays out a lump sum for sufferers of  cancer, a heart attack or stroke. These are the most common critical illnesses in the UK, and represent almost 80% of claims paid by AIG Life.

The life insurance offered by the Yorkshire Building Society is broadly similar to most popular products on the market; it pays out as a lump sum if you die or are diagnosed with a terminal illness while insured. You are able to choose the term of the insurance and the sum you would like to insure for. This product has a certain amount of flexibility in terms of term, and you can choose to have a decreasing term if your costs are likely to decrease over time as a dependent family grows. You can even choose a level or increasing term for your cover if you feel that this would better serve your needs, for example, if you’re likely to add to your family or anticipate taking on a higher mortgage in the future. You can also take the Life Insurance out as an individual or as a joint insurance policy with a partner.

Yorkshire Critical Illness Cover

Critical 3 with Life Insurance is an innovative product designed to cover your costs in the event of serious illness. Again this type of insurance pays out a lump sum if you should be diagnosed with certain types of cancers, stroke or heart attack or terminal illness. This product will pay out when you are diagnosed as having only 12 months or less to live as detailed by a medical consultant.

Customer Experience

In terms of customer service and support, the Yorkshire Building Society is good at being as flexible as possible to fulfil their clients changing needs. For example, you can reduce the insurance amount as long as you don't fall below the minimum they set for the product. If you have life insurance which is set to increase every year, then you can ask for the increases to stop at any time, if you do decide to do this then remember that your insurance amount will be frozen at that level.

If your finances change and you would like the insurance amount to increase again, then this is possible too, as long as the account has not been frozen for more than three consecutive years.

If you want to reduce the length of your insurance that is also possible as long as the period does not fall below the minimum term or that it would alter your monthly payment to below the minimum level. You can also split a joint life insurance policy to one or two single life policies, although again there are terms which govern this. The amount of the new individual or both joint policies can’t be more than 100% of your original policy, and this change can only be made within six months of separating and getting new mortgages.

To make this change, the Yorkshire Building Society will ask for evidence of the separation and recent mortgages as well as confirmation that both parties agree to the alteration.

Is the Yorkshire Building Society Insurance Right for You?

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The Yorkshire Building Society is an accessible insurer both in terms of being able to walk into a branch on the high street and in terms of them being great at customer service. Defaqto gives Yorkshire good feedback for their products, with four stars for Level Term Life Insurance, and their Critical 3 with Life Insurance.

Feedback and reviews from customers praise their reliability, and people value their relationship with the bank. Customers also appreciate that the age range that is insurable with the Yorkshire Building Society is wider than the average with life cover being available for people aged between 17 – 86, and the Critical 3 with Life Insurance policy available for 17-75-year-olds. Yorkshire do not offer a guaranteed cover over 60s plan so if you are in this braket you may be asked for more information about your health before you are offered cover.

A drawback of Yorkshire Building Society’s Insurance products is the critical illness component, compared to most mainstream providers, there are very few illnesses which qualify. The list of cancers, for example, is very limited, and the parametres around strokes and heart attacks are also very strict. Other popular lenders such as Vitality cover many more types of critical illnesses.

The insurance policies are available at high street branches, by telephone, and also online.

The new streamlined process now takes around 15 minutes to complete and customers will only have to answer 11 questions. Most customers will be able to buy insurance straight away and without having to provide medical evidence.

Both Life Insurance and Critical 3 with Life have the added benefit of access to doctors who will provide a global second opinion medical consultation if necessary.

There is a simple online life insurance calculator to help customers decide what type of insurance they need, and how much it would cost them before they commit to a product.

In general, the Yorkshire Building Society offers a variety of life, and critical illness policies which are simple to set up. and users enjoy a positive customer service experience.

Defaqto ratings