my mum is trying to look for a life insurance policy that will cover her for £5k and last 15 years. she also wants one where if she doesn't die after the 15 years a lump sum of money is paid out not only if she dies within the period of cover.does anyone know of any cover or insurer that offers this kind of policy.

Yes, it is called whole life, all insurance companies offer it. Some even pay interest on it.

A whole life policy or a Universal Life policy will develop cash values over time. After 15 years your mum could surrender the policy and redeem the cash value that has accrued. Just about all insurance companies offer these options.An agent can present a proposal that will show you the cash value of that policy after 15 years. A whole life policy will generally guarantee the cash values in the proposal while a universal life policy is indexed so that after 15 years there may be more or less than is projected in the proposal.

Have you ever heard of any type of insurance that pays you back money? It doesn't exist. If you paid premiums for your car insurance, do you think you can get your premiums back in 15 years? Of course not. You are paying for a service and there is no return of money.As for the life insurance that pays cash value, the amount you pay will never equal to value of the cash value until you are at least 95 years old.There is an investment contract called a variable annuity. It guarantees you a minimum death benefit of the amount you have invested into it. If you put in $10,000, you are guaranteed a minimum death benefit of $10,000. If you died someday, and the value was more than $10,000, your beneficiary will get paid what your contract is worth. So if it was valued at $12,000, your beneficiary will get $12,000. If the value of your contract was below $10,000, your beneficiary will get paid $10,000.If you decide to start withdrawing money from it, you lose the death benefit option. You can take the money in one lump sum or receive payment every month for the rest of your life. There is usually a withdrawal penalty during the first 8 years of the contract. Check the prospectus to learn more about a particular variable annuity.