Life insurance in Greece and income protection: the complete guide

At a glance

The point

Life insurance answers one question: if you die tomorrow, what is left for your family? Income protection answers a second one, which is easy to forget: if you fall ill or have an accident and cannot work, who pays the rent next month? This guide explains what the Greek market sells for these two questions, what it costs, and which contracts are not insurance but savings under another name.

What is insurance and what is savings

In Greece the life branch sells three very different things under the same name.

The first is pure insurance. You pay a small amount each year. If the worst happens, the insurer pays a large sum. If it does not, you get nothing back. Term life insurance, loan insurance, disability cover and income protection all work this way. The premium is low precisely because it is not returned.

The second is savings with some insurance on top. Pension plans and plans for children belong here. Most of the premium goes into an account that grows at an interest rate or follows the markets. A small part buys death cover. The question here is not “what does it cover”. It is “what does the insurer keep”.

The third is an investment inside an insurance policy: the unit-linked plan. Your money buys units in mutual funds. The insurer guarantees nothing, not even the capital. The death cover is often a sum equal to the value of the units, or a little more.

This guide covers all three.

Term life insurance: the basic product

Term means “for a set number of years”. You choose a sum, for example €150,000, and a term, for example 20 years. If you die within the 20 years, the beneficiaries you named receive the €150,000. If you are alive at the end, the contract ends and you get nothing back.

With a level premium, the premium is locked on the day you sign: whatever the 38-year-old pays this year, he still pays at 57. Not every product works this way. A one-year policy is priced again at each renewal, at your new age. Ask which kind you are buying. The difference matters, because the risk of death rises fast with age: in Greece in 2024 it was 0.083% a year at 40, 0.236% at 50 and 0.664% at 60².

The sum can be level or decreasing. A level sum stays €150,000 from the first day to the last. A decreasing sum falls each year, as the balance of a loan falls. Decreasing cover costs less than level cover, because on average the insurer has less money at risk. Ask the same insurer for both prices, and ask three insurers.

On top of the basic death cover, insurers add three supplementary covers. Permanent total disability pays the same sum if you can never work again. Critical illness pays on a diagnosis of cancer, heart attack or stroke. Waiver of premium keeps the contract alive without payments if you become disabled.

How much cover you need

One common mistake is the round number. Someone picks €100,000 because it sounds like a lot. For a family with two children and a €150,000 loan, €100,000 does not even cover the loan.

The calculation has three steps. First, what you owe: the balance of the mortgage, the car, the cards. Second, the income that would be missing: for how many years you want to cover the gap between what you earn and what the family will earn without you. Third, what already exists: group cover from work, savings, and the survivor’s pension that EFKA, the social insurance fund, will pay.

A multiple of your annual net income is a rough start, but the three steps above give a better number, because they start from your own debts and needs.

Remember that the sum can be large and the cost of the risk small. At 38, the yearly risk of death in Greece was 0.074% in 2024². So each extra €50,000 of cover adds a net cost of risk of about €37 a year, before the insurer adds its costs. Under-insuring yourself to save a few euros a month makes little sense.

Income: the most common risk and the least insured

Ask a self-employed person what happens if they break an arm for three months. The answer is usually “I will work with the other one”. For six months, “I will live on my savings”. For two years, silence.

EFKA gives a disability pension only from a disability rate of 50%, certified by the disability assessment centres (ΚΕ.Π.Α.), and its highest band, severe disability, starts at 80%⁶. A broken arm, back surgery or a depression that lasts a year do not reach that. For an employee, the EFKA sickness benefit is low and stops fairly soon. For the self-employed, there is none at all.

Income protection insurance pays a sum each month while you cannot work, after a waiting period. Three things set the price. Your age. Your occupation, from the office to the building site. And the waiting period, that is how many months you wait before the benefit starts. The waiting period is the excess of this product, and a longer wait costs less.

The benefit also has a duration: a set number of months per claim, or up to an age. Only the longest duration covers the worst case, and it costs more.

Insurers print few examples. Interamerican shows, for a 35-year-old, €164.24 for a permanent loss of income benefit of €400 a month, and €31.58 or €44.88 for a temporary benefit of €400 a month after an accident or an illness, without saying for what period⁷. Ask for the full quote in writing.

This cover matters most to the self-employed, but it holds for every worker without group cover at work.

Disability: the definition decides everything

The word “disability” appears in every life, loan and income contract. It does not mean the same thing in each one.

The narrowest meaning is permanent total disability for any occupation. It pays only if you cannot do any work at all, of any kind, for the rest of your life. A surgeon who loses three fingers does not qualify. He can teach.

The middle meaning is disability for your own occupation or a similar one. The surgeon qualifies. An office worker with the same injury does not.

The widest is disability for your own occupation, with no further conditions. It is the cover you want, and the most expensive.

Some contracts in Greece define disability by a rate set by the KEPA centres. Others use a list: “loss of sight in both eyes, loss of two limbs”. Read the definition before you sign.

Critical illness: payment on diagnosis

Critical illness cover pays a sum as soon as you are diagnosed with one of the illnesses on its list: cancer, heart attack, stroke, kidney failure, a transplant, and on longer lists more, such as multiple sclerosis. It pays while you are alive. The money is for your life in the following year, when income drops and costs rise.

The differences between insurers lie in the list and in the definitions. A very early-stage cancer may pay nothing at one insurer and part of the sum at another.

Savings plans

The pension plan of an insurer is an account with a monthly payment, a guarantee or an investment, and an insurance policy around it. Three things decide its worth.

Charges. Each plan keeps something from every payment, something from the capital every year, and something if you leave early. The charges of the first years are the largest. That is why the surrender value in the first years can be below the premiums you paid.

Guarantees. A plan with a guaranteed interest rate promises a minimum, today usually a low one. A unit-linked plan promises nothing. The guarantee has a price, and you pay it with a lower return.

Tax. Life insurance premiums are no longer deductible from income, as they were in the past. On the premium itself, the insurance premium tax on life cover is 4%, and contracts of ten years or more are exempt⁸. Benefits are taxed under different rules depending on whether they are a lump sum or a pension, and whether the plan is individual, group, or an occupational pension fund (ΤΕΑ).

Where to go from here

That is the logic. Before you sign, check the details that apply to you. The comparison for life insurance shows the market average from public figures, and our own estimate for each company, from the cheapest. The comparison for loan insurance shows the market average.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need life insurance if I have no children and no loan?

Usually not. Life insurance exists so that nobody else is left without an income or with a debt. If nobody depends on your money, the death benefit has nobody to go to. Think about disability and income, though. Those concern you yourself, with or without a family.

How much does life insurance of €150,000 cost?

No public figure gives the premium itself, and each insurer sets its own. The public measure is the yearly risk of death, which in Greece in 2024 was 0.083% at 40 and 0.236% at 50. For €150,000, that is a net cost of risk of about €125 and €354 for that year, before the insurer adds its costs and profit. From 40 on, the risk roughly triples with every ten years of age.

Can the bank make me take its own life insurance for the loan?

No. It can ask for life insurance assigned to it. It cannot choose the insurer. You bring a policy from wherever you like, as long as it covers the balance of the loan. Compare the price of the policy of the bank with the market before you sign.

How does income protection differ from life insurance?

Life insurance pays a sum once, when you die. Income protection pays a sum every month, while you are alive but cannot work. Both risks are real at working age, and the second one is easy to forget.

What is a unit-linked plan, and why is it sold as insurance?

It is an investment in mutual funds inside an insurance policy. The insurance part is usually a small death benefit. The rest follows the markets. It is sold as insurance because the rules for insurance policies then apply, not the rules for investments. Look at the charges before anything else.

If I stop paying, do I lose the money I paid?

With term life insurance, yes. You paid for cover and you had it. There are no savings inside. With savings plans, not all of it. After some years you have a surrender value. In the first years, though, that value is far below the premiums you paid, because of the charges.

Must I declare past conditions when I take out life insurance?

Yes, every one the questionnaire asks about. Article 3 of Law 2496/1997 obliges you to declare whatever you know that affects the risk. If you deliberately hide something serious, the insurer may end the contract, and you are then owed only the surrender value. A declared condition may mean a loading on the premium, an exclusion or a postponement.

Sources

1. ↑How the comparison works: where every number comes from, October 2026
2. ↑Eurostat, Life table by age and sex (demo_mlifetable), Greece, probability of dying, 2024, 25 September 2026
3. ↑Interamerican, life insurance, 12 October 2026
4. ↑ΕΑΕΕ (Hellenic Association of Insurance Companies), Life insurance, full year 2025, tables 5 and 23, 29 April 2026
5. ↑Law 2496/1997, the insurance contract, Government Gazette (ΦΕΚ) A 87, 1997
6. ↑e-EFKA, circular on the uniform conditions for a disability pension, article 11A of Law 4387/2016, 12 September 2023
7. ↑Interamerican, income protection, 12 October 2026
8. ↑Law 5177/2025 (Government Gazette A 21/14.02.2025), Code of Indirect Taxes, article 43: the insurance premium tax, 2025