John and Paul ran an advertising business with their wives, Greta and Jo, and bought commercial premises with a £250,000 mortgage from HSBC which also happens to own its own life insurance company HSBC Life. Understandably and perfectly reasonably HSBC wanted all the partners insured so that the mortgage would be paid off if any of them died. Less reasonably like all banks HSBC wanted to enlarge its profit margin on the deal by selling them policies with HSBC Life. Being independent, we shopped around the market and got them the cover they needed for premiums 30% lower.