People over 50 with 12 months left to live would prioritise arranging their funeral and spending time with family and friends while the under-50s would go on a cruise.

Over 50s were twice as likely to arrange their funeral than under 50s given 12 months to live, according to a survey for SunLife.

Across all ages those faced with the dilemma of just 12 months of life left said their top choice was to ‘spend more time with family.’ Only 11% of people would quit their job.

Visits to the Northern Lights and Australia were the most popular ‘bucket list’ destinations but 15% of people said they would not do anything different.

The company asked 2,000 Britons the top five things they would do if they had just 12 months to live and found that priorities changed with age.

Under 50s put ‘go on a cruise’ as number one and ‘make funeral arrangements’ down at number 7, while for over 50s, going on a cruise was number 5 and arranging their funeral was second only to spending more time with loved ones.

What would you do if you had 12 months to live?

Source: Sun Life

Ian Atkinson, marketing director at SunLife, said: “While a third of over 50s would organise their funeral if they knew they only had 12 months to live, for under 50s, even the time pressure would not make funeral plans as a priority, which gives us a bit of insight into why so many of us don’t do anything until it is too late.”