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Group life insurance UK: the group life assurance scheme
Group life insurance, or group life assurance, is one scheme through which an employer looks after its employees' families: if an employee passes away, it usually pays a lump sum to the people they nominated (GRiD ↗).
It is the policy behind death in service.
This guide covers how a scheme works, the minimum number of employees, registered and excepted schemes, small businesses and providers.
Every claim here is our summary of a named external source, linked beside it. Sources change: check the wording at the link before you rely on it.
What is group life insurance?
The employer pays, and employees are covered as a group rather than one policy each.
GRiD, the group risk industry body, describes how it works; the table sets out its points (GRiD ↗).
Employees often know it as death in service; it is also called group life cover or employee life insurance, and the wider options are compared in company life insurance for employees.
Which page do you need?
This page covers the group life assurance scheme itself.
For what it costs, see group life insurance cost; for setting up and quoting a scheme, see death in service insurance.
If you are an employee asking what your cover means, start with the death in service guide.
- For employees
Death in service
What it means, whether you still need life insurance, how the payment is made and whether it is taxed.
- The rules
Death in service benefit
How much it pays, who gets it, the NHS scheme, benefit in kind and the pension link.
- For families
Death in service payments
How a claim is made, what it needs and who decides who is paid.
- Calculator
Death in service calculator
Your salary times your scheme’s multiple, with the tax checks.
- For employers
Death in service insurance
Buying a scheme for your staff: setting it up, quotes, what to compare and providers.
- For employers
Group life insurance cost
What death in service costs an employer, what drives the premium, published examples.
Group life insurance minimum employees
There is no single minimum: each insurer sets its own, from two lives for Canada Life's online policies to five or more employees for its standard group life (Canada Life ↗).
The table lists what each insurer or broker publishes.
The legal form sets a floor too: Legal & General describes an excepted group life policy as one that insures two or more people (Legal & General ↗).
For one person, relevant life cover is single life cover the employer pays for (Royal London ↗).
Alphabetical. Each insurer or broker states its own rule; check at the link before you rely on it.
Group life insurance for small business
A small business can run a group scheme once it meets the insurer's minimum: two or more lives for Canada Life's online policies (Canada Life ↗), or three or more on Aviva's platform (Aviva ↗).
Below that, relevant life cover insures one employee or director at a time (Royal London ↗).
Owners often weigh this against key person cover, but the two pay different people.
Group life and relevant life pay the employee's family through a trust; key person cover is owned and paid for by the employer, so any payout goes to the business (Legal & General ↗).
A policy where the company is the beneficiary is not an excepted group life policy (HMRC ↗).
One person
Relevant life
Single life cover the employer takes out for one employee or director.
Two or more
An excepted group life policy is possible
Legal & General describes it as insuring two or more people.
Three to 250
Aviva’s adviser platform
Quotes for 3 to 250 lives; larger schemes go to its team.
Five or more
Canada Life’s standard group life
Or two lives or more for its online policies.
The business
Key person cover is different
It pays the employer, not the family.
Sources: relevant life (Royal London ↗); excepted policies (Legal & General ↗); Aviva (Aviva ↗); Canada Life (Canada Life ↗); key person (Legal & General ↗).
Registered or excepted group life
The lifetime allowance ended on 6 April 2024 (HMRC PTM171000 ↗).
A registered group life scheme's lump sum now counts towards the member's lump sum and death benefit allowance (Legal & General ↗), £1,073,100 unless a higher protected amount applies, with any excess taxed at the recipient's marginal rate (HMRC PTM172000 ↗).
Benefits from an excepted group life policy do not count towards that allowance (Legal & General ↗), so a large lump sum from one is not tested against it.
We do not recommend one: an FCA-authorised adviser can tell you what suits your workforce.
Rows summarise HMRC, the legislation and two insurers' own guides (Aviva for its policies, Legal & General for its policies); terms differ between insurers, so check each at its link. HMRC says deaths within the first ten years of an excepted scheme's trust are likely to be taxed at 0% (HMRC ↗).
Group life insurance vs relevant life insurance
Relevant life is single life cover an employer takes out and pays for on behalf of an employee or director, paying the family through a trust (Royal London ↗).
In the legislation, a relevant life policy is either an excepted group life policy or a single-life policy meeting the section's conditions (legislation.gov.uk ↗).
Neither is for protecting the business: Legal & General says its Relevant Life Plan should not be used for business protection such as key person cover (Legal & General ↗).
Group life insurance providers and quotes
Several UK insurers publish group life products; the list shows one point from each insurer's own page, in alphabetical order.
It is not a complete list, a ranking or a recommendation.
Quotes usually come through an adviser: Canada Life says you can get a quote from an adviser (Canada Life ↗), and Aviva's group life quote platform is for UK advisers (Aviva ↗).
What to compare is under best death in service insurance for employers, and published price examples are on the group life insurance cost page.
- AvivaQuotes for 3 to 250 lives on its adviser platform, with larger schemes through its group protection team; different benefit levels for different groups of staff (Aviva ↗).
- Canada LifePresents itself as one of the UK's largest group protection providers (Canada Life ↗); group life for five or more employees, or two lives or more online, quoted through an adviser (Canada Life ↗).
- Legal & GeneralPaid £284m on group life assurance claims in 2025, an average of £201,032 (Legal & General ↗).
- ZurichTakes group life claims by phone or email through Zurich Corporate Risk (Zurich ↗).
Alphabetical, from each insurer's own page. For regulated advice, use an FCA-authorised employee benefits adviser.
Check it for yourself
Every claim on this page is our summary of one of the documents listed here.
We last checked them against the live sources on 28 September 2026.
The documents are the authority, not this page.
Insurers and HMRC update them, so validate any figure or condition at its link before you rely on it.
- GRiD: group life assurance ↗The industry body’s description, tax summary and 2023 market figures
- GRiD: group risk claims paid in 2025 ↗Group life claims, value paid and average claim for 2025
- Canada Life workplace protection ↗Canada Life’s group protection products
- Canada Life: Group Life Insurance ↗Minimum scheme size, registered or excepted trusts, and the tax position it describes
- Aviva adviser: Group Life ↗Scheme sizes on Aviva’s online platform and its free cover limit
- Aviva: Group Life registered and excepted benefits technical guide (GR01299) ↗How Aviva’s registered and excepted group life policies differ: tax, trusts, cease ages
- Legal & General: relevant life and excepted group life policies ↗What an excepted group life policy is, the allowance and discretionary trust charges
- Legal & General Group Protection: group life assurance claims ↗Legal & General’s 2025 group life claims paid and average payout
- Zurich Corporate Risk: group life insurance claims ↗How Zurich takes group life claims, and when it needs a death certificate
- Drewberry (broker, tier 2): death in service insurance ↗A broker’s two published cost examples (November 2025) and the cost drivers it lists
- HMRC Pensions Tax Manual, PTM171000 ↗The end of the lifetime allowance from 6 April 2024
- HMRC Pensions Tax Manual, PTM172000 ↗The lump sum and death benefit allowance, and the marginal-rate charge on the excess
- GOV.UK: Inheritance Tax on unused pension funds and death benefits ↗Death in service benefits from registered schemes stay outside the estate from 6 April 2027
- ITEPA 2003, section 393B ↗Where “relevant life policy” is defined
- ITTOIA 2005, section 481 ↗Excepted group life policy conditions, including the age-75 limit
- HMRC Employment Income Manual ↗Relevant life policy conditions, including the age-75 limit
- HMRC Inheritance Tax Manual, IHTM17092 ↗Excepted group life trusts and the first ten years
- HMRC Insurance Policyholder Taxation Manual, IPTM7035 ↗A policy paying the company is not an excepted group life policy
- Royal London relevant life FAQs ↗Relevant life: single life cover, in trust, not a P11D benefit
- Legal & General relevant life guide ↗Why its Relevant Life Plan is not for business protection
- Legal & General key person insurance ↗Key person cover is owned and paid for by the employer, and pays the employer
- FCA Handbook, PERG 5.8 ↗Generic information about insurance is not regulated advice
Group life insurance, answered
Not financial advice. This page is general information. Before buying insurance, the FCA tells consumers to check the firm on its Firm Checker (FCA ↗). For free guidance, see MoneyHelper.