Life insurance

Family relaxing on sofa

Protect what matters most

Life insurance could be the most important financial product you ever buy. It’s not easy to think about something happening to you. But having a plan could be the difference between your family maintaining their lifestyle and paying off the mortgage, or losing their home.

Get a quote

Your choice of Life Insurance

Mother and son doing crafts while dog watches from armchair

Life cover

Life cover could pay out a cash lump sum if you die before your policy ends.

It can act as a safety net and could help your loved ones cope financially when you can’t be there.

Explore life cover
Couple chatting

Critical Illness Cover

Critical illness cover could pay out a cash lump sum if you are diagnosed with an illness covered by your policy before it ends.

The money could help you and your loved ones meet day-to-day costs and let you focus on your own health and wellbeing.

Explore critical illness cover

Learn the basics of life insurance

Get answers to your most commonly asked questions on life insurance and critical illness with life cover to help you understand the basics and show you the benefits of financial protection. Life insurance explained.

Existing customers

Existing customers

Already have a life insurance product with us?

Manage your policy

When’s the right time to get life insurance?


The big changes in life can give you a good chance to think about how you can protect yourself and your loved ones from the unexpected.

Changing jobs

Changing jobs

If your income changes, you might want to think how this could affect the cover you and your loved ones would need.

Having children

Having children

When you have a child, getting cover could make sure that they’ll be protected if anything happens to you.

Getting a mortgage

Getting a mortgage

If something happens to you, your cover could pay out a cash lump sum to help your loved ones pay off the mortgage.

Getting married

Getting married

This can be a good time to think about how cover could help to protect your partner if the unexpected happens.

Planning your funeral

Planning your funeral

We don’t like to think about it, but funerals can be expensive. Your cover could help your loved ones with these costs.

Being a carer

Being a carer

There might be others who rely on you or your income. Your cover could protect them too.

Life insurance policies have no cash-in value at any time. If you don’t pay your premiums on time your cover will stop, your policy will end and you’ll get nothing back. If the sum assured has not been paid out by the end of the selected term, the policy will end and you’ll get nothing back.

Get a quote

Get a quick quote online

Get a quick quote online

You can get an online quote for our Plan & Protect life insurance if you are aged 18 to 59.

We’ll ask a few questions about your health and lifestyle, then give you an instant decision.

It takes about 10 minutes to apply. We can’t save your application, so make sure you have enough time before you start.

What’s included

Plan & Protect life insurance includes:

  • life or critical illness cover* up to £500,000
  • level cover - the cash pay-out stays the same until the policy ends so you always know how much cover you’ll have if you need it
  • single cover for one person.

*Critical illness cover includes an early-stage cancer payment of £5,000.

For full details of what Plan & Protect covers, read the life cover policy summary (PDF,1MB) and critical illness policy summary (PDF, 1MB).

Get your online quote

Prefer to talk to someone?

Prefer to talk to someone?

Get comprehensive advice on our Scottish Widows Protect life insurance policies from our experts, Cavendish Online.

You can get a quote by telephone if you are aged 18 to 79, or 18 to 64 for critical illness cover.

Cavendish Online don’t charge for their advice and you don’t have to agree to take out a policy on the call.

Get a callback or call​ 0800 131 0018, Monday to Thursday 9am to 7pm​, Friday 9am to 6pm.

What’s included

Scottish Widows Protect life insurance includes:

  • life insurance up to £25 million, including terminal illness cover
  • critical illness cover up to £3 million, including early stage illness and children’s cover up to £30,000
  • choice of increasing, level or decreasing cover
  • single cover for one person, or joint cover for two.

For full details of what Scottish Widows Protect covers, read the policy summary (PDF, 2MB).

Get a callback

Help and support

Got a question?

Got a question?

Questions about life insurance? Get in touch.

Contact us

Make a claim

Make a claim

How to make a claim for a critical illness, terminal illness, income protection or premium protection.

Make a claim

Financial services compensation scheme (FSCS)

Go to FSCS website