Legal & General life insurance review 2026: our independent verdict

Why you can trust myTribe Insurance Experts

myTribe Insurance is independent and has no commercial relationships with any insurer. Our reviews are written by a team of CII-qualified experts. To produce our Legal & General Life insurance review we analysed:

• 18 Legal & General policy documents, product guides and terms and conditions
• 4 core Legal & General life insurance benefits and 6 additional options
• Actual Legal & General customer service reviews and other industry ratings and awards
• Legal & General's latest life insurance claims payout statistics

About Legal & General: key facts at a glance

Founded in 1836 Legal & General is one of the UK's leading financial services groups. In addition to life insurance, Legal & General also sells income protection insurance, critical illness cover, pensions and investments.In 2025, according to the latest Swiss Re Term & Health Watch report, Legal & General was the best-selling provider of term life insurance.

Ultimately, how much you pay for your Legal & General life insurance will depend on:

This review is based on Legal & General Life Insurance, which is its term life insurance product. However, Legal & General does have some other life insurance products, each with their own rules and ways of working. The full range of Legal & General life insurance products includes.

• Life Insurance Plan: Offers a range of term life cover that pays a lump sum if you die during the policy term, or are diagnosed with a terminal illness with a life expectancy under 12 months. It is available direct or through financial advisers.
• Family and Personal Income Plan: Pays a monthly benefit rather than a lump sum, and is designed to replace ongoing income. It can be combined with critical illness cover.
• Whole of Life Protection Plan: Has no fixed term and pays a lump sum whenever you die, making it suitable for inheritance tax planning or covering final expenses.
• Over 50s Fixed Life Insurance: Designed specifically for 50-80 year olds, with guaranteed acceptance so you don’t have to answer medical questions. Its modest maximum life cover makes it best suited for funeral expenses.

_{Sources: Legal & General Whole of Life Protection Plan Policy Summary, Legal & General Over 50s Fixed Life Insurance, Legal & General Family and Personal Income Plan}

How does Legal & General Life Insurance work?

Legal & General’s term life insurance comes in four types: level, decreasing, increasing and family income. Each is designed for a different protection need.

Who can apply for Legal & General Life Insurance?

The table below details the main eligibility criteria for applying for a Legal & General Life Insurance policy:

Legal & General includes four protection benefits as standard at no extra cost on every life insurance policy.

• Terminal illness cover: Pays the full life cover amount if you are diagnosed with an illness expected to cause death within 12 months, in the opinion of your hospital consultant and L&G's Medical Officer. Terminal illness cover is automatically included where the life policy term is two years or more.
• Accidental death benefit: Free temporary life cover while Legal & General processes your application that pays the lower of your applied-for cover amount or £300,000, for up to 90 days.
• Free life cover: Free life cover: Provides up to £300,000 of free cover between exchange and completion (or missives and entry in Scotland), for up to 90 days. Available if you're accepted by Legal & General on standard terms and don't already have cover for the same mortgage. 
• Wellbeing Support and Care Concierge: Free phone access to RedArc nurses for emotional and clinical support, plus free access to Care Concierge for navigating later-life care. See full details of what is included in the next section. 

If you take out Critical Illness Cover with your life insurance, Children's Critical Illness Cover is included free as a fifth standard benefit. We cover the details of Children's CIC in the optional benefits section later in this guide.

What are Legal & General's Umbrella Benefits and what do they include?

Legal & General calls its free extras Umbrella Benefits. These are commonly referred to as added-value benefits and give you the opportunity to use your policy in other ways during the term, so it serves as more than just a financial payout. Two services are included free of charge: Wellbeing Support and Care Concierge. Here’s how they work:

Wellbeing Support, provided by RedArc Assured

What it is: Phone-based support from experienced RedArc registered nurses. It offers compassionate, personalised guidance on illness, injury, bereavement, mental health, treatment options and understanding a diagnosis.

Who can use it: The policyholder, their partner, and any children living in the same household.

How it works: Available from day one of the policy, you don’t need to claim to access it. Conversations are not time-pressured and there is no limit on how many times the service can be accessed.

Care Concierge, provided by L&G's in-house team

What it is: A free telephone advisory service supporting later-life care decisions, covering care plans, funding eligibility, benefit entitlement and Power of Attorney. It also includes access to a dedicated online platform.

Who can use it: Available to the policyholder and their immediate family. It can be accessed from the start of your policy without needing to make a claim.

These are not contractual benefits which means Legal & General can decide to change or remove them at any time. They are best viewed as extra perks that can enhance your core cover, giving you more value from your policy.

As well as the benefits that you get as a standard part of your life cover, Legal & General lets you add some further benefits for an extra cost. L&G's range of optional extras is narrower than some rivals, but the main add-ons cover most needs. They are:

Critical Illness Cover

Critical Illness Cover pays a cash lump sum if you are diagnosed with one of 31 specified critical illnesses, or undergo a medical procedure for one, and survive for 14 days. Two additional payment conditions are included: carcinoma in situ of the breast (treated by surgery) and low-grade prostate cancer requiring treatment. Each of these pays the lower of 25% of cover or £25,000 without ending the main policy.

A unique feature of Legal & General's Critical Illness Cover is its £5,000 Accident Hospitalisation Benefit if you or your child spend 28 consecutive days in hospital after an accident.

There is also a Surgical Treatment advance that pays the full cover amount in advance if you are placed on an NHS waiting list for aorta graft surgery, heart valve replacement or repair, or specified heart surgery, provided the full clinical definition is met. This is a feature many rivals do not match. 

Critical Illness Extra

Critical Illness Extra expands cover to include all 31 standard critical illness conditions plus 17 additional full-payment conditions, such as heart failure, severe bowel disease and severe mental illness. It also offers enhanced partial payouts of up to £35,000 for a wider range of conditions, including certain cancers, aortic aneurysm and Guillain-Barré syndrome. This upgraded cover is only available through financial advisers. 

Children's Critical Illness Cover and Children's Critical Illness Extra

Children's critical illness cover is included free with any Legal & General critical illness policy. It pays the lower of 50% of cover or £25,000 per valid claim, for natural, legally adopted, step-children or those under legal guardianship aged 30 days to 22. Up to two eligible children can be covered.

Children's Critical Illness Extra is an extra-cost upgrade available through advisers. It extends cover from birth to 23 and removes the cap on the number of children. It also raises the payout cap to the lower of 100% of cover or £40,000, and adds 12 child-specific conditions, including cerebral palsy, cystic fibrosis, Down's syndrome, muscular dystrophy and spina bifida.

Waiver of premium

Waiver of Premium is an optional extra whereby Legal & General will pay your premiums if illness or injury stops you working for 26 consecutive weeks. Waiver of premium cover continues until you recover, your 70th birthday or the policy ends, whichever comes first. The maximum entry age for waiver of premium is 64.

Increasing cover (RPI-linked)

If you select increasing life insurance your cover amount will rise each policy anniversary in line with the Retail Prices Index over a 12-month period. If RPI is below 1%, your cover does not increase that year; if RPI exceeds 10%, cover increases by 10%. Your premium uplift is 1.5 times RPI on life products, capped at 15% per annum. 

Legal & General scored 89.86% in our 2026 review, earning a myTribe four-and-a-half star rating. That places it sixth overall on our list of the top ten-rated providers, although it's worth noting that there was very little difference between the overall scores of many of the leading providers.

To assess the strengths and weaknesses of Legal & General’s Life Insurance product, our experts reviewed it across six key areas, ranging from the quality and flexibility of cover to the customer experience. Each area was weighted to reflect its importance to customers. The table below is a breakdown of Legal & General’s scores and rankings for the life insurance categories we assessed.  

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Legal & General's strongest area is Cover Types & Limits where it scored 95% and ranked joint third. It reflects the breadth of choice offered by its four payout structures which cover most protection needs. This category had the highest weighting in our 2026 assessment.

Legal & General also scored well for policy flexibility (90%), as there is ample scope to make changes once your policy begins. This includes comprehensive guaranteed insurability options to increase cover following major life events without further medical underwriting. There is also a Joint Life Separation option that enables couples to split a joint policy into two individual policies. 

Recently, Legal & General introduced additional flexibility for increasing life insurance policies, letting you decline inflation-linked increases to your cover for up to three consecutive years without losing the option to increase it again in the future. This can give you more control over rising premiums. 

Legal & General scored weakest in our assessment of additional benefits and options, with a score of 84%, leaving it ninth in this category. Its score is held back by a shorter list of optional benefits than some of its rivals, not helped by the removal of its fracture cover last year. 

Legal & General’s free value-added benefits are also less comprehensive than most of the other leading life insurance providers. Its Umbrella Benefits centre on its wellbeing phone support from RedArc nurses and its Care Concierge service, both genuinely useful, but there’s no remote GP service, which is commonplace elsewhere. If 24/7 digital GP appointments are important to you, other providers will be a better fit. 

What our experts like about Legal & General life insurance

• Four types of term cover: level, decreasing, increasing and family income benefit, with policy terms from one to fifty years
• Accidental death benefit, and free life cover (between exchange of contracts and property completion)
• Children’s critical illness cover is automatically included if you add critical illness cover
• Free access to Legal & General’s Wellbeing Support Service and Care Concierge
• Funeral payment pledge of up to £10,000 to help families pay funeral costs
• ‘Excellent’ Trustpilot customer rating, plus a five-star Defaqto product rating.

Where Legal & General life insurance falls short

• There’s a fairly limited range of additional benefits to choose from
• Claims payout rate in 2025 was lower than that of some other insurers
• Fewer free extras than the market leaders, including no remote GP service 
• Joint life cover is only available on a first death basis only.

Can you get Legal & General life insurance with a pre-existing health condition?

Many people with pre-existing medical conditions can still get Legal & General life insurance. Each application will be assessed individually, with Legal & General reviewing your medical history and overall health. This can include conditions such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, or cancer. 

In some cases, you may still be offered cover on standard terms. In others, Legal & General may apply a higher premium or exclude certain benefits from the policy. If the insurer believes the level of risk is too high, cover may be declined altogether. Legal & General may also postpone an application if you have recently experienced a serious medical event, are undergoing medical investigations, or are waiting for surgery or treatment. 

A regulated broker can check terms with L&G before you formally apply, so you know where you stand. If there are concerns about eligibility or pricing they may also be able to find better terms elsewhere.

What does Legal & General life insurance not cover?

As with all UK life insurers, there are some circumstances in which Legal & General will not pay a life insurance claim. These include:

Suicide in the first year: Legal & General won’t payout if you die within the first 12 months as a result of suicide, intentional self-injury, or any event where it reasonably concludes the person took their own life. 

Non-disclosure: If your application contains deliberately or recklessly inaccurate answers, L&G can cancel the policy and refuse to pay out. Where inaccuracies are careless rather than deliberate, it can amend the policy to reflect the terms that would have applied had the correct information been provided.

Not meeting the critical illness survival requirement: Critical illness claims require you to survive at least 14 days from diagnosis; children's critical illness cover has a 10-day survival period. 

Not meeting the clinical definition: Each critical illness condition has defined severity, permanence, or treatment requirements. Cancer, for example, must be a malignant tumour with histological confirmation, with specific exclusions for pre-malignant lesions, cancer in situ, and certain early-stage tumours. 

Missed premium payments: Legal & General will end your cover 60 days after your first missed premium. 

Legal & General advertises that its life insurance starts at just £5 per month, but the amount you pay depends on your needs and circumstances.

The table below provides some examples of the cost of Legal & General life insurance based on quotes for £200,000 of level term life insurance. The figures are for a non-smoker of different ages requiring various policy term lengths.

What affects your Legal & General life insurance premium?

Ultimately, how much you pay for your Legal & General life insurance will depend on:

Your age: The older you are when you take out a Legal & General life insurance policy the higher your premium. For example, a 50-year-old can expect to pay around 5 times as much as a 30-year-old for the same level of cover.

Smoking status: Legal & General charges higher life premiums for smokers and anyone who has used nicotine products in the past 12 months. Former smokers may also pay more if they quit within the last five years.  ‍

Cover amount: The more cover you need, the more expensive your premium.‍

Term length: Longer life policy terms cost more. A 30-year level term life insurance policy costs around 18% more than a 20-year policy for the same cover amount.

Cover type: Decreasing life insurance is typically the cheapest type of life insurance; level term sits in the middle, and increasing term costs more because the cover amount rises over time.

Health and lifestyle: Any medical conditions you disclose, plus your weight, blood pressure and cholesterol, can affect the price you pay.

Add-ons: Optional extras increase the cost of your policy. Critical Illness Cover, Critical Illness Extra, Children’s Critical Illness Extra and Waiver of Premium add to your Legal & General monthly premium.

See our latest cost of life insurance research to learn more about the average price of different types of life cover. 

Legal and General paid 97.5% of life insurance claims in 2025, up slightly from 97% in 2024, totalling £527 million. It paid 13,950 claims with an average payout of £37,788. Overall, Legal & General’s life insurance payout rate is higher than the most recently published industry average of 96.5%, but it is behind the very top of the market (ABI).

In 2025, Legal & General also paid 94.8% of terminal illness cover claims, 92.9% of critical illness cover claims and 95.3% of Children’s Critical Illness Cover claims.

It is worth noting that Legal & General is a signatory to the PDG Claims Charter, an initiative aimed at improving the claims experience for customers. This includes faster claim payments and a named point of contact throughout the process.

On valid Legal & General life insurance claims, families may be able to receive an early payment of up to £10,000 to help with funeral expenses. These funds are paid directly to the funeral provider. 

What do customers and industry experts say about Legal & General life insurance?

Legal & General has a Trustpilot score of 4.3 out of 5 based on over 31,000 reviews. However, this score covers all of its products, including pensions and investments, so it is not specific to life insurance. It is worth noting that, among customers who have left life insurance reviews, many have praised Legal & General for how it handled claims at a difficult time.

Legal & General’s own website shows a slightly higher Trustpilot score of 4.4 out of 5 from over 1,600 reviews from its life insurance customers, which may provide a better indication of how policyholders rate its service.

Defaqto has awarded Legal & General five stars for its Life Insurance based on the breadth and quality of its policy features.

Legal & General also won Life Insurance Life Insurance Provider of the Year (Direct) at the 2026 Moneyfactscompare.co.uk Awards. It's the seventh consecutive year that it has won this annual award.

Legal & General fares slightly less favourably on Fairer Finance, where it has a life insurance customer experience score of 77%, placing it 13th out of 22 life insurance companies. Fairer Finance scores providers based on customer trust and happiness, transparency, claims and complaints.

Is Legal & General life insurance worth buying in 2026?

With a score of 89.86% and a myTribe four-and-a-half-star rating, Legal & General is an excellent option when choosing life insurance. Although it didn’t receive the maximum five-star rating this year, it only narrowly missed out.

Overall, Legal & General offers an extensive range of cover types, making it suitable for a variety of protection needs, from covering a mortgage to providing a financial safety net for your family. It may also appeal to those who value the reassurance of a familiar big-brand insurer with a strong reputation for customer service.

However, Legal & General Life Insurance won't be the right fit for everyone. It is arguably less compelling if you are looking for the broadest range of optional extras, such as fracture cover. The lack of a remote GP service among its value-added benefits is disappointing given how common this popular feature is elsewhere.

If Legal & General is on your shortlist, it is worth speaking to a regulated broker who can compare it against alternative providers based on your individual needs and circumstances. To get personalised quotes for Legal & General and other life insurance providers from one of our partner brokers simply fill out this form. 

To see how Legal & General fares against other leading insurers you can also read our guide to the best life insurance in 2026.