Nationwide Life Insurance Review 2025

Life insurance provides financial support to your loved ones after your death. This support can cover funeral costs, mortgage payments, or your children’s future expenses. Nationwide is a provider of life insurance and may have a suitable product for you.

Who Are They?

Nationwide is a well-established British bank with a loyal customer base and industry recognition. They won the Which? Best Banking Brand of the Year award in 2018. In addition to their banking services, they offer a range of products including home, travel, and life insurance. Nationwide is also a Mutual Company, meaning it is owned by its customers. As such, profits are reinvested to improve products and services, rather than distributed to shareholders.

What types of life insurance does Nationwide offer?

Nationwide offers several types of life insurance with an optional add-on for customers:

Fixed Premium Cover

Your payout will not decrease over the policy period and will remain the same amount as when you initially purchased the policy. For example, a policy payout will be £100,000 both at the beginning and end of the policy term.

Decreasing Life Insurance

Your payout will decrease over the policy period, and as a result, your premiums are typically lower. Policyholders often choose this option when they have mortgage repayments or similar long-term loans that they want to cover in case of their death. Mortgage payments and these types of loans reduce over time, so this decreasing life cover is designed to reduce in the same way.

Additional Critical Illness Cover

Nationwide Life Insurance allows you to add critical illness cover to your life insurance policy. This cover pays out if you are diagnosed with a serious illness. This means you are covered for death, diagnosis of a terminal illness, or diagnosis of a “critical illness” such as a heart attack, stroke, or cancer. The specific conditions defined and covered as a “critical illness” are detailed in Nationwide’s policy documents. It is important to note that a claim made under the critical illness benefit may reduce the payout from your life insurance policy, so please review your insurance documents carefully.

Nationwide Life Insurance Product Offerings

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Life Insurance Features

• Pays out a lump sum upon death.
• Option to choose between single or joint policyholders. For joint policies, upon a valid claim, there is an option to reactivate the policy for the remaining policyholder (an additional premium may apply).
• Several policy types available:
  • Level Term, Decreasing Term
  • Critical Illness Cover option
• Choice between paying premiums annually or monthly.

Additional Benefits

• Waiver of premium if you become unable to work. This benefit covers your premiums after 26 weeks if you are too ill or incapacitated due to sickness or injury to continue your normal occupation (available for an additional premium).
• Advance Benefits Payment: You can claim an advance payment of up to £5,000 to provide early financial support while the full claim is being processed.
• Mid-term changes are permitted, allowing policyholders to adjust the length of their policies, increase or decrease the amount of cover, and even remove a life assured.
• Access to Nationwide’s Specialist Support Team, which offers a confidential service to assist customers and their carers during challenging times. Whether you need to discuss financial concerns, or are experiencing or recovering from conditions such as depression or anxiety, Nationwide’s Specialist Support Team can provide assistance.

Why Might Nationwide Not Payout?

• Failure to provide accurate policyholder details at the time of application.
• Death due to self-inflicted injury or suicide within 12 months of the policy start date.
• Diagnosis of a terminal illness for a policyholder whose policy period is less than two years.
• For a joint policy, Nationwide will only pay the amount of cover once.
• If you have added Critical Illness Cover, a diagnosis for a valid payout must be for an illness listed in the policy document.
• Missing scheduled premium payments.

N.B. Policyholders must reside in England, Wales, Scotland, or Northern Ireland (excluding the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands).

Defaqto Ratings for Nationwide Life Insurance (2025)

Defaqto is a well-known independent rating agency that assesses financial products, including life insurance. Their star ratings help consumers quickly understand the quality of different policies based on features and benefits. A 5-star rating indicates an excellent product with a comprehensive range of features, while lower ratings suggest fewer features or less comprehensive cover.

The latest Defaqto ratings, updated as of March 7, 2025, show a solid performance for Nationwide Life Insurance. Many of their direct life insurance and critical illness products have achieved high ratings. Here’s a summary of Nationwide’s Defaqto star ratings:

• 5 out of 5 stars: Critical illness (direct with life cover), Life assurance (direct)
• 4 out of 5 stars: Critical illness (decreasing), Critical illness (level term), Life assurance (decreasing), Life assurance (level term)

When comparing Nationwide to major competitors, we see a competitive landscape. Aviva, Legal & General, and Zurich also hold numerous 5-star Defaqto ratings across their life insurance and critical illness offerings. For example, Aviva and Legal & General boast 5-star ratings for many of their critical illness and life assurance plans, while Zurich excels in whole of life and income protection.

For consumers, these ratings suggest that Nationwide provides strong life insurance options, particularly their direct products which are rated at the highest level. While competitors also offer highly-rated products, Nationwide’s consistent 4 and 5-star ratings indicate reliable and well-featured policies worth considering when seeking life insurance.

Advantages

• Flexible coverage options are available, with different term covers (Level or Decreasing) to suit your needs, and mid-term changes are possible.
• Good minimum policy terms starting from just one year.
• 15% discount if you already have a mortgage, savings, or main current account with Nationwide.
• Option to choose between single or joint coverage for a cost-effective way to protect yourself and your partner.
• Beneficial extra features of coverage if Critical Illness cover is selected, such as Accident Hospitalisation Benefit and Children’s Critical Illness cover.
• Option to place the policy in trust, so that upon a valid claim, the payout to your beneficiaries will not be subject to inheritance tax.

Disadvantages

• Maximum policy terms are either 50 years or until you reach 90 years old, whichever comes sooner. Some insurers offer whole of life coverage, where premiums are not required after a certain age, but coverage continues indefinitely.
• The age limit for Critical Illness Cover is ten years less than for Life Insurance when purchasing the product, and twenty years less when making a claim.

Defaqto ratings