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Guides to UK rules: ISAs and pensions, HMRC allowances, National Insurance, and FCA-regulated insurance and protection.
2 guides
Covered here: ISA · SIPP · National Insurance · HMRC · FCA · figures in GBP
A UK life insurance payout that is not written in trust generally lands in your estate, where it can be taxed at 40% and has to wait for probate. Putting the policy in trust is usually free, usually done at application, and routinely skipped.
Intestacy rules are fixed, public and indifferent to what you intended. A surviving spouse takes the first £322,000 and half of what is left; an unmarried partner takes nothing at all. Here is how a life insurance payout gets caught by those rules, and how it avoids them.