Many people get confused with the difference between Life Assurance and life insurance. The term life assurance is much more widely used in the United States of America, where as in the UK we seem to call it life insurance. Many people if we are going to be pedantic actually call it the wrong name. Life assurance, actually means that something is definitely going to happen. Hence the term assurance, this is assured to happen. So if you get life assurance this is cover that will assure it will payout, as we are all going to die at some stage. Whereas the term insurance is different, insurance is insuring against something that may happen in the future. So if you buy some insurance that will run a specific term this should be called life insurance, if you are buying a whole of life plan, this should be called assurance as it is definitely going to happen.