Scottish Widows Life Insurance
What are the benefits of insuring with Scottish Widows?
Learn about Scottish Widows insurance, with almost 6 million customers, they’ve protected families for over 200 years and the benefits of insuring with Scottish Widows.

Whether you’re a Scottish Widow or a Welsh Fiancé, your life is worth its weight in gold. Or at least the lump-sum decided upon during your life insurance application process.
The point is, the benefits of having a life insurance policy with Scottish Widows goes beyond the fact that your loved ones are financially protected should the worst happen to you. The benefits of insuring your life – and ensuring their futures – is the additional protection provided in ways that possess the ability to enhance your everyday life, right up to the end, at no extra cost.
- Remote GP and free repeat prescription delivery services by Square Health via Scottish Widows’ Clinic in a Pocket™
- The provision of RedArc personal nurses
- A Scottish Widows partnership with Macmillan Cancer Support
Because Scottish Widows don’t just care in the event of death, they’re offering services to enable you to prevent that death, for as long as you can, too.
Here’s what they do.
A brief introduction to Scottish Widows
On the 18th of June, 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated, thus ending the battle of Waterloo (in the distance, you hear the faint sounds of Abba singing “Waterloo!”). But the effects of the Napoleonic Wars didn’t end that day. They lingered, existing violently inside the wives, the children, the loved ones of the men who were lost to the chaos – their fathers, their brothers, their husbands.
Three years earlier, in the Royal Exchange Coffee Rooms in Edinburgh, several distinguished Scotsmen met up and sat down for coffee, and discussed setting up a general fund for mothers and sisters and widows, to help protect from the aftershock of such chaotic and catastrophic events that might one day arise. On January 2nd, 1815, Scottish Widows opened for business.
Sir Walter Scott, famed Scottish historian, novelist, poet and playwright, took out a life insurance policy in 1824. In 1912, two aboard the Titanic had policies with Scottish Widows that were later, inevitably, claimed.
And so do almost 6 million others, right now, today.
From humble beginnings, Scottish Widows has grown to over 2,000 employees, no longer insuring just the female relatives suffering from the loss of their men during the Napoleonic Wars, but simply people, all people, who have lives filled with those that they love.
Based in Edinburgh and becoming part of Lloyds Banking Group in 2009, Scottish Widows has been protecting families for over 200 years with both life insurance and pension services. Let’s take a look at what products Scottish Widows offers:
What products does Scottish Widows offer?
Scottish Widows offer various types of life insurance policies, to suit a multitude of needs. These policies include:

Level term life insurance is the most common insurance taken out. For a fixed monthly premium (how much you pay each month – and that figure won’t change) paid over a specified period of time, known as the term, your loved ones will receive the cover determined upon taking out your policy – a cash lump-sum paid out to them – should you pass away during that policy term.

A decreasing life insurance policy is designed with repayment mortgage in mind – which is why it’s often also called mortgage cover. For a fixed monthly premium over the specified term, your family will be paid out cover to put towards mortgage repayments (or cover other debts), in case of your death.
However, unlike level term cover, as you pay back your mortgage each month, the amount of cover you’re eligible for decreases accordingly, but your monthly premiums remain the same.

Like the most expensive balloon ever created, this world, and everything within it, is inflating. Prices. Worries. Worries about prices. Which is why an increasing life insurance policy was designed to follow the trends of the Retail Prices Index (RPI).
As everyday living costs increase, the cover of your policy does too, so that your cover stays in line with inflation. Your premiums will also increase each year.
With increasing cover, you have the peace of mind of knowing that the life insurance payout your family gets will cover what they need, in any financial landscape.

Critical illness cover covers you for exactly that: the unwanted appearance of a critical illness.
If you were to be diagnosed with a critical illness, it’ll likely have a serious impact on your day-to-day life. It can render you unable to work, to earn money to pay the bills, the rent, the mortgage, and it can also throw more unexpected expenses your way; hospital fees, travel, additional childcare costs, you name it. And these stack up.
But with a critical illness policy, you’re paid out a cash lump-sum if you’re diagnosed with such, providing you with the financial protection to see you through these tough times. For a more detailed look at what conditions are covered by critical illness insurance, Protect Line has collated some of the main conditions classed as critical illness by the ABI.
You can also combine your critical illness life cover with any life insurance policy you might have, so you’re covered in the event of death, too. This policy can also cover your children.
*Note: Not all types of cover listed above are available through Protect Line. Our specialists will be able to give you the options available to you and compare these against the insurers on our panel.
If you know what policy you’re after (or policies, because you can have more than one!), then get your life insurance quotes here.
3 Benefits of insuring with Scottish Widows
Scottish Widows life protection offers a wide range of additional benefits – at no extra cost. These value-added services are available to any Scottish Widows policy holder, regardless of the policy type.
1. Scottish Widows’ Clinic in a Pocket™ service
Every Scottish Widows life insurance policy taken out after March 2021 comes with access to the Clinic in a Pocket™ service, provided by Square Health. This service is not a far cry from the idea of having a tiny medical practice, private to you and open all hours, crammed inside your jeans pocket.
The key features of this service includes access to a remote GP 24/7, for you, your partner and your children to talk through any health concerns you might have via a remote consultation. It can also be used to complement existing NHS treatment.
In addition to this, Scottish Widow’s Clinic in a Pocket™ (typically your pocket. You won’t have to rummage through another’s) offers free repeat prescription delivery service right to your front door – though you might have to cover the cost of the medication.
With this Scottish Widow’s life insurance service, you have access to all the medical expertise you might need, right from inside the same crevice you keep your keys.

2. Personal nurses provided by Red Arc
Scottish Widow’s life insurance customers are given the added extra of having a personal nurse provided by Red Arc, for emotional and practical support and advice.
RedArc is a team of experienced and qualified nurses, able to provide generalised and specialised medical knowledge in a variety of
situations. If you’re grieving a loved one. If you’re suffering from a traumatic event. If you’re enduring any long term physical or mental illness. If you need a little help, guidance, support, then RedArc nurses are on your side, and by your side.
Depending on what your circumstances might be, your RedArc nurse can provide you with the appropriate counselling or therapy – or
even just a face-to-face chat to discuss your needs.
“From the moment I first met RedArc I felt I had found a company and a role that would really make a difference to people’s lives. I have not been disappointed.” – Aled Powell, Operations Manager.
Some people say that “you’re born alone, and you die alone.” But that’s never been true, now has it? Nurses are here for you, at every stage of your existence, so you never have to feel alone again.
3. Scottish Widows’ partnership with cancer charity, Macmillan
Sadly, not all life insurance claims are because the customer has lived out a long and unproblematic life.
In 2022, Scottish Widows paid out 99% of life insurance claims, with 28% of those claims a result of cancer for men, and 42% for women. Not to mention that 50% (men) and 74% (women) of their critical illness claims are due to various diagnoses of cancers. The devastating C-word has devastating effects, financially, emotionally, tainting every day, even after you’re gone (Protect Line explains in more depth the statistics of cancer based on research found, as of 2021).

Which is why it’s no surprise that Scottish Widows have partnered with Macmillan. If you or somebody you love is suffering from or has been affected by cancer, then Macmillan Cancer Support are a shoulder for you to lean on – they’ve even trained Scottish Widows agents to provide it, too.
Scottish Widows will refer you or your loved ones to Macmillan for practical, emotional and even financial, clinical and online support. So much so that, if you’ve made a claim on your critical illness insurance, Scottish Widows might be able to offer you £,3000 of it upfront, whilst the claim is being processed.
Together, Scottish Widows and Macmillan Cancer Support are here to help you get back on your feet, standing sturdy, so that you can kick cancer’s ass. Because a life impacted by cancer is still a life. You’re one in a macmillion, and you deserve to find the support you need.
(For more information on life insurance cover options for those with cancer, Protect Line have written a detailed article, elaborating).
If any of the above Scottish Widows life insurance additional benefits have left you thinking about taking out a policy of your own:
Why should I take out insurance with Scottish Widows?
Protect Line work on an non-advisory basis and only provide you with the facts so you can make an informed decision as to what life insurance cover best suits your needs. We will never encourage you to take out life insurance with a specific insurer and provide quotes from a panel of insurers.
Below is some further information about Scottish Widows that you might like to know:
- Scottish Widows won ‘Outstanding Individual Life Insurance’ for 2021 by Cover Magazine Excellence Awards
- Scottish Widows was also awarded 5-stars by Defaqto – a renowned and trusted independent service that compares and rates financial services – for life assurance and critical illness cover, and a gold service rating in 2023
- Scottish Widows paid out 99% of all life cover claims made in 2022
- For critical illness cover, Scottish Widows paid out 93% of claims in 2022
- £199 million was paid out across all 98% of claims in 2022
- Signed up to The Protection Distributors Group’ (PDG) Claim Charter, reinforcing dedication to delivering the highest standards throughout the claim experience (and plot twist: they’ve been doing just that)
- Scottish Widows sponsored the Olympic Games in 2012 and employ Olympic athletes Roger Black and Sarah Storey. No surprise that they also provide gold medal standard services
Scottish Widows are here for more than just grieving wives in Edinburgh. They’re here for those who want to provide as much love and support as they possibly can, even when they’re no longer around. Scottish Widows life insurance provides protection policies as well as a multitude of additional benefits, not because they have to, but because they’re here for you.
“Scottish Widows care.”
As they have done for 200 years, making a promise to protect those that you love, no matter how many unsinkable ships sink and wars are waged in time’s wake.
Start your Scottish Widows life insurance application today.
References:
- RedArc quote: https://www.redarc.co.uk/about-us/
- Scottish Widows Care: https://www.scottishwidows.co.uk/life-insurance/products/critical-illness-cover/care.html
- Scottish Widows Macmillan Cancer Support: https://www.scottishwidows.co.uk/help-support/health-and-wellbeing/macmillan.html
- Scottish Widows claims data: https://adviser.scottishwidows.co.uk/assets/literature/docs/56719.pdf
- Scottish Widows awards: https://adviser.scottishwidows.co.uk/about/award.html