Where to get life assurance in Germany

HI

Does anyone know where I can get Life Assurance in Germany ?

thanks

Contact Mike Woodiwiss at Spectrum. He's just sorting out some quotes for me.

Great thanks... he is on the case now !

yep. Mike is a good recommendation... will you need just a term life insurance (i.e. only a risk insurance in the case of your untimely death) or what Germans call a "Kapitallebensversicherung" where you have basically a savingsplan combined with life insurance? As an independent advisor I can only warn you against the second option, as common and broadly used it may be in Germany ---- it is just a terrible waste of your money. If you need to protect your loved ones against this riks, chose a term-life-insurance just for that and if you want to invest money, do that with the best available options for investment. Mixtures seldom really work, at least not the German variation (which is one reason why Germans have such a poor average yield on their savings in an OECD comparison).

Cheerio

But it's tax-free!!! </sarcasm>

Expaticus: you got that one right! It can be sometimes very depressing when discussing this with German clients of mine. Instead of looking at the real yield of an investment in comparison before taxes they just fall for whatever rubbish is offered as tax-saving. The current new flood of unnecessary investment "products" to evade the "Abgeltungssteuer" is just another example of something going serious wrong her and where the lawmakers unfortunately are part of the problem since they always make insurance products tax-wise more attractive at first glance...

However, there is a solution that works for German and Expats if they want to invest in investment funds and still evade the "Abgeltungssteuer" but without paying for some life-insurance-frame around the investment: and that is with a RIESTER plan, regardless if you are eligible for tax breakes and subsidies as an employee or not. Because what happens here is that you can pay in as much as you want (over-pay it, in a manner of speaking) and if you keep the investments going for more then 12 years and don't cash in before you are 60 years old, you will not be charged "Abgeltungssteuer" but only half your actual tax-rate at the time when pension starts (and only on the yield, of course). But I'll write a WIKI on Abgeltungssteuer soon for all, since this has been discussed already and as there is a lot of uncertainty about this here among Expats too.

Cheerio