Life Insurance Cover Blog

Summary:
Five years ago when David Elliot was diagnosed with cancer of the brain, life was wouldn’t ever be the same again but after a traumatic operation his recovery has been good. Still Peter lives with the worry that the cancer could attack again at any time during the next 5 to 10 years. He will also have to take pills to reduce his epilepsy for life.

Mr Moores, who is now 40, believes he is the most “fortunate man alive” to have survived. But he can no longer obtain life cover.

Mr Moores and his wife have a 4 year old son, Mark, and a year ago they moved from Liverpool to Barnsley in Yorkshire. The family remortgaged 85,000 pounds with the Abbey National but David was unable to cover the remortgage with a life insurance policy of his own.

“The Alliance and Leicester’s underwriters would not give me life insurance. Jayne has life and critical illness cover for the whole mortgage,” he says.

The probability of attaining life insurance are notably improbable if an application is put forward during the first 2 years of having been told that you have a dangerous form of cancer or having had a heart attack. If the patient is lucky enough to make a complete recovery within a set period, normally between 3 – 5 years, insurance companies will consider covering them again but will put a “loading” on to the rates. In many cases this can be as much as eight times the monthly payments that others pay.

For the first 2 years after an operation, someone in Mr Taylor’s position would be refused life assurance policies and critical illness insurance cover. Following this length of time, life insurance cover should be offered “but at a very high premium”.

The life company which underwrites for high-risk people (those who practice extreme sports or with medical conditions is the Special Risks Bureau. It claims to have a accomplishment rate of sixty five per cent when putting its clients with insurers. Special Risks Bureau (SRB) confirmed that it will be a further year before they may be able contemplate an application from Mr Simmons.

Monthly payments will without doubt be heavy because of his epilepsy and compared to the general population there would still be an increased mortality risk. Unless a policy specifically excluded cancers, Mr Greg would almost certainly be refused any critical illness cover.

Therefore as a result of professional financial advice, the Simmons family has saved up eight months emergency money and put it to one side, to all intents and purposes a self-insurance policy.

And there is a bit of good news for Peter. Chelten and Gloucester, his previous mortgage lender, has permitted him to maintain £60,000 of  life cover from an existing policy – albeit at a price of £40 a month. The name for this kind of policy is Guaranteed Insurability Option (GIO) and means the insurers will permit the insured up to half of the original amount assured without underwriting.

However it is not just critical medical conditions that can impact on  life cover. George Clegg, marketing manager of Gloucester sports Club had his initial application declined because of a minor illness. Various visits to doctors and endless telephone calls to Tesco Finance they in due course sorted things out. Mr Hopwood’s counsel to anybody in the position is to make an application first and assist it with a full copy of your medical notes.