The health insurance and protection market covered
British troops killed without life cover
Dozens of soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan without taking out life insurance while thousands more have served active duty without cover, it has been revealed.
According to government figures more than 45,000 military personnel who served in Afghanistan and Iraq did so without any form of life insurance.
A further 32,000 personnel took part in operations in the two countries with less than the maximum cover available to them through the Ministry of Defence's arranged scheme.
The figures were obtained by Jim Murphy MP, Defence spokesman for Labour, through Parliamentary questions.
Under the current voluntary PAX life insurance scheme, soldiers are able to take out up to 15 units of cover paying £10,000 death benefit per unit and £4,000 critical illness benefit per unit.
Each unit costs just under £5 per month.
Although the government does provide lump sum payments up to £570,000 for wounded personnel, joining the PAX scheme is encouraged to help provide security for bereaved families.
According to the reply from the Secretary of State for Defence, 50 serving personnel were killed in Afghanistan without PAX or any other known of life insurance.
A combined 45,900 (35,600 in Afghanistan, 10,300 in Iraq) served without holding any cover and 32,800 (26,400 and 6,400 respectively) did not have the maximum 15 units of PAX cover.
A total of 64,400 (55,900 and 9,500 respectively) served with full PAX insurance coverage.
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Govt responsibilities
The government's inability to understand its responsibilities to this nations servicemen is one of the reasons why many of us have simply voted with our feet and left. I am now a civilian and have private health insurance, my company insures me & my family, I am paid over 1/3rd more than I was in the military and I control my new pension plan.
Posted by: Hector Hat | Apr 28 2012
They die for us, why don't we provide it as their right?
More to the point, according to the story the British Government appears prepared to provide death benefit insufficient to the needs of long term family maintenance. If true that surely is unforgiveable. The job of a serviceman is, ultimately, to be prepared to die for his country. Surely the job of the country (i.e. in this case the Government) is to ensure that any people who are or who are about to become dependent on him (or her) should be looked after at least as well as they could have done in life thereafter - plus compensation for the loss of their life. After all, our Anglo-Saxon forebears had no problem with paying for the value of a life and for the benefit of dependents (‘wergild’) and we are immensely wealthier. There should be absolutely no need for any top up life assurance as a financial settlement should be generously met on our behalf. The figure mentioned for maximum compensation is only about the cost of one Tornado aircraft bombing sortie – and there could be hundreds if not thousands of these in any conflict with hardly a thought given to the cost.
Posted by: Orlando Furioso | Feb 06 2012
Misleading story
As large numbers of soldiers are young single men without dependants why would they want to buy life insurance? If there was information on the numbers of soldiers with dependants killed without life insurance that would be a meaningful basis for a story. Surely selling life insurance to a single soldier without dependants would be mis-selling!
Posted by: Adrian Marshall | Feb 06 2012
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