Life insurance cost by age — what it costs at 25, 35, 45 and 55
Short answer: for £250,000 of level term cover over 20 years, a healthy non-smoker pays about £18 a month at 35, £34 at 45 and £67 at 55. Below is the price for every single year between 20 and 65 — not age brackets, the year you actually are.
The figures are the same indicative calculation the calculator uses. They are orders of magnitude for a healthy applicant, not quotes: what you are offered depends on underwriting.
Price by age, year by year
Monthly premium for £250,000 over 20 years:
| Age | Non-smoker | Smoker |
|---|---|---|
| 20 | £12 | £22 |
| 21 | £12 | £22 |
| 22 | £12 | £23 |
| 23 | £12 | £23 |
| 24 | £12 | £24 |
| 25 | £13 | £24 |
| 26 | £13 | £24 |
| 27 | £13 | £25 |
| 28 | £13 | £25 |
| 29 | £14 | £26 |
| 30 | £14 | £26 |
| 31 | £15 | £28 |
| 32 | £15 | £29 |
| 33 | £16 | £31 |
| 34 | £17 | £33 |
| 35 | £18 | £34 |
| 36 | £19 | £36 |
| 37 | £20 | £38 |
| 38 | £21 | £40 |
| 39 | £22 | £43 |
| 40 | £24 | £45 |
| 41 | £25 | £48 |
| 42 | £27 | £52 |
| 43 | £29 | £56 |
| 44 | £31 | £60 |
| 45 | £34 | £64 |
| 46 | £36 | £68 |
| 47 | £39 | £73 |
| 48 | £41 | £79 |
| 49 | £44 | £84 |
| 50 | £48 | £90 |
| 51 | £51 | £97 |
| 52 | £55 | £104 |
| 53 | £58 | £111 |
| 54 | £63 | £119 |
| 55 | £67 | £128 |
| 56 | £72 | £137 |
| 57 | £77 | £147 |
| 58 | £83 | £157 |
| 59 | £89 | £168 |
| 60 | £95 | £181 |
| 61 | £102 | £193 |
| 62 | £109 | £207 |
| 63 | £117 | £222 |
| 64 | £125 | £238 |
| 65 | £134 | £255 |
Premiums scale linearly with the sum assured, so the table covers any amount: at 40 it works out at £10 per £100,000 a month, at 35 £7. Half the cover, half the price.
One artefact worth naming before it puzzles you: several of the youngest rows repeat. Figures are rounded to whole pounds, and in the early twenties a year of age is worth less than fifty pence a month, so 21 and 22 print the same number. Nothing has gone flat — the rounding has. From the thirties onwards every year carries its own figure, which is where this table starts being worth reading.
What one year actually costs
Most price guides, including our own cost guide, tell you the premium roughly doubles each decade. That is true, and it is also the least useful way to hear it, because nobody decides to wait a decade. They decide to wait until after the wedding, or until the bonus lands, or until they have read a bit more about it.
So price the decision people actually make. Between 35 and 36 the table moves by £1 a month. That is not the cost of waiting a year, though — because a UK level term premium is set at underwriting and never recalculated, that £1 is paid in every one of the term's 240 months. The real price of that year is £240, and you pay it for the rest of the policy.
Now do it fifteen years later. Between 49 and 50 the same one-year step is £4 a month — £960 across the term. The step itself grows, which is the part the decade rule hides: putting it off gets more expensive the longer you have already put it off.
Worth being precise about what "locked" means, because it is the assumption the arithmetic above rests on: your age is fixed at application, and on a guaranteed-premium policy the price is too. On a reviewable one it is re-assessed periodically. The cost guide sets out the difference and it is worth two minutes before you sign anything.
Reading your own quote against this table
If the quote in front of you is close to the row for your age, you are being offered roughly the market rate and the remaining question is cover and term, not price.
If it is well above the row, age is not what did it. The usual causes, in rough order of frequency: nicotine in the last 12 months, which is a column of its own below; a health or family-history loading applied at underwriting; a hazardous occupation; or a policy that is not what you think it is — over-50s guaranteed acceptance plans and mortgage payment protection are priced quite differently from ordinary level term.
Each of those has a different question attached, and "is this expensive?" is not one of them. The useful question is which of them applies, because two are permanent and two are not.
In your twenties
£13 a month at 25 — the cheapest it will ever be for you.
The honest caveat first: cheap is not the same as needed. If nobody loses money when you die — no mortgage, no partner depending on your income, no children — then £13 a month is £13 a month for nothing. Cover a commitment, not a birthday.
Where there is something to cover, applying young does two things here that it does not do everywhere. It fixes the price, as above. And it fixes it while the health questions are still easy — a 25-year-old passes underwriting almost without exception, and after a couple of decades of blood pressure readings, a back problem or an investigation sitting in your notes, the same insurer may load the premium, exclude a condition, or decline.
It is worth saying that this is a British argument, not a universal one. On the Norwegian version of this page the same table means something quite different: Nordic death cover is typically age-rated and renewed annually, so the premium climbs whatever you signed and the table is the path your own price walks. Here the row you sign on is the row you keep.
In your thirties
From £14 at 30 to £22 at 39.
This is usually the decade the need appears: the mortgage, the first child, a household that has quietly become dependent on two incomes. It is also the decade where the "we'll increase it later" plan does the most damage, because a top-up is priced at your age when you take it out, not at the age you were when you bought the original policy. If you already know the number is too low, the cheapest day to fix it is today.
In your forties
£24 at 40, £34 at 45, £44 at 49. This is where the figures start to be noticeable on a bank statement.
It is also where it pays to stop covering everything the same way. Your mortgage balance falls every year while the cost of covering it rises — decreasing term follows the debt down and costs less than level cover for the same loan (more on that here). Keep level cover for the part that replaces income and raises children, which does not fall.
Term length bites harder now than it did at 30. For a 45-year-old with £250,000: £29 a month over 10 years, £34 over 20, £44 over 30. Choose the term by your longest commitment — usually the remaining mortgage — rather than the longest available.
In your fifties
£48 at 50 and £67 at 55, for cover that cost £14 in your thirties.
At these prices the question stops being which insurer is cheapest and becomes how much cover you still need. The mortgage is well down, the children are leaving, and the original sum assured may simply be too big. Reducing it is the one lever that genuinely moves the premium, because price is linear in cover: half the sum, half the price. Work the number out again rather than renewing on autopilot.
The opposite risk sits in the same decade. Death-in-service through your employer is worth most now and disappears most easily — leave, be made redundant, or retire early and it ends, at exactly the age where an individual policy costs what the table says. Count it as a deduction from the need, not as the answer: death in service explained.
After 60
£95 at 60 and £134 at 65. Most UK insurers will write new term cover to around 70, and existing policies commonly end at 70 or 75 — which is its own event worth planning for, covered in what happens when a policy ends.
For most people the right answer at this age is not a dearer policy but an honest recount. With the mortgage gone and the children grown there may be nothing left to insure. Where debt remains, it is worth checking whether savings would clear it outright.
Smoking and nicotine
The smoker column is a 90 per cent loading. For the 40-year-old that is £45 instead of £24; for the 50-year-old, £90 instead of £48.
Two things worth knowing. Insurers ask about the last 12 months, so a full year clear moves you to non-smoker rates — occasionally the single most valuable thing you can do before applying. And most count vaping, patches and gum as nicotine use: the question is about nicotine, not tobacco.
Answer it honestly regardless. A misstatement on the health declaration can reduce or void the payout — the one outcome the policy existed to prevent.
What to do with the table
The price for your age is half the answer. The other half is the sum you actually need, and £250,000 here is only a worked example: the calculator builds the figure from your mortgage, other debts, the income to replace and the children, subtracts what you already have, and then prices that specific amount at your age and term.
If you would rather understand what drives the price than what it is, that is how much does life insurance cost.