........and could you be paying less??
If you have a significant health condition such as diabetes or heart disease and your application for life insurance is accepted, almost always you can expect to pay higher premiums because of your health condition. Insurance companies charge more to cover the higher risk of the policy resulting in a claim.
But have you ever stopped to consider how the extra amount the insurance company wants you to pay compares with the rest of the market? If you did and you looked into this further you might be very surprised at what you might find.
Consider this example - Sarah and Sue are twin sisters aged 40, both non smokers and each requires £180,000 term life insurance over a 25 year term. The only difference between Sarah and Sue if that Sarah has no significant health conditions, whereas Sue has insulin controlled diabetes with average control.
Sarah is able to purchase the required cover from insurance company A at £15.34pm with insurance company B offering her the same cover at £15.73pm - or about 2.5% more than company A.
But for Sue its a different story. Due to her diabetes Company A's premium increases to £28.08pm. But company B now want a whopping £48.81pm! - which is now over 73% more than company A, or an extra £6,200 over the whole term of the policy.
So why does the differential go from 2.5% to 73%?
The answer lies in the different underwriting decision that that the company A and company B make after looking at the medical information. Not all companies make the same premium pricing decisions. In fact each UK insurance company generally has well over a dozen different premium ratings bands from which to choose when deciding which one to put you into and the key thing is that they dont all choose the same banding!
The moral of the story is that if you have a significant health condition shopping around is even more important than normal and could save you a small fortune. Even if you have alreay purchased cover in recent year after being diagnosed with your condition it is worth doing some research to see if you can save yourself some money.
Finally if you find thought of doing the necessary daunting (which it certainly can be) why not get a specialist broker to have a look for you.
www.moneysworth.co.uk offer a no fee life insurance shopping service for people with health conditions. Its simple to use and Moneysworth do the research for you. You can also call with your enquiry on 0845 430 5200.
Showing posts with label heart condition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label heart condition. Show all posts
Friday, 20 July 2012
Tuesday, 29 May 2012
Non Disclosure Is False Economy
I have just read an article in todays Cover Magazine here http://tinyurl.com/7dlbkwe in which Zurich's head of underwriting is quoted as stating that huge numbers of applications received contain 'embellishments' of the truth about applicants' health details.
Why would anyone wish to take out life insurance using information which if succesfully contended at claim stage by the life company might lead to the claim being disallowed? How pointless is that? In stead of (presumably) saving a bit on the premiums, non disclosure risks wasting every penny of the premiums.
Of course in such cases it won't be the person who is insured who will ever know. It will just come as an extra horrible shock to those who are left. Messy!
As so many of our clients at Moneysworth have pre existing health conditions (including diabetes, heart conditions and other health conditions), it is common for life insurance companies to write to our client's doctors for medical information before making a final decision. Though on the face of things this might be seen to cause a degree of anxiety during the waiting period, the reality is that at the end of the process clients can feel extra peace of mind, knowing that the insurance company holds a report from their doctor.
In fact in many cases clients say to us that they would prefer the life company to write to their GP so that they can feel safe knowing that medical information HAS been disclosed!
And of course by using Moneysworth our clients know that we have properly researched the market to find the best solution for them individually. Which is important when you consider that different insurance companies charge widely different prices for people with the same health conditions.
So if you have a health condition and want to apply for life insurance make sure that you fully disclose your health information and if possible use the services of a life assurance broker who really does specialise in helping people with pre existing health conditions. That way you will know that you are fully covered and at a good price.
Why would anyone wish to take out life insurance using information which if succesfully contended at claim stage by the life company might lead to the claim being disallowed? How pointless is that? In stead of (presumably) saving a bit on the premiums, non disclosure risks wasting every penny of the premiums.
Of course in such cases it won't be the person who is insured who will ever know. It will just come as an extra horrible shock to those who are left. Messy!
As so many of our clients at Moneysworth have pre existing health conditions (including diabetes, heart conditions and other health conditions), it is common for life insurance companies to write to our client's doctors for medical information before making a final decision. Though on the face of things this might be seen to cause a degree of anxiety during the waiting period, the reality is that at the end of the process clients can feel extra peace of mind, knowing that the insurance company holds a report from their doctor.
In fact in many cases clients say to us that they would prefer the life company to write to their GP so that they can feel safe knowing that medical information HAS been disclosed!
And of course by using Moneysworth our clients know that we have properly researched the market to find the best solution for them individually. Which is important when you consider that different insurance companies charge widely different prices for people with the same health conditions.
So if you have a health condition and want to apply for life insurance make sure that you fully disclose your health information and if possible use the services of a life assurance broker who really does specialise in helping people with pre existing health conditions. That way you will know that you are fully covered and at a good price.
Monday, 18 April 2011
A Positive Outcome For A Difficult Life Insurance Case
A client recently came to us with a difficult case - subaortic stenosis.
At Moneysworth we do our best to help everyone who comes to us with a health condition to obtain life cover. We deal with a lot of heart related medical conditions, especially heart attacks, angina and heart by passes. However there are of course a number of other heart conditions, including subaortic stenosis.
Like so many who come to us this client was seeking life insurance to cover his mortgage so that the remaining mortgage debt would be cleared in the event of his death, thereby providing him and his family with peace of mind knowing that should the worst happen the family would still have thier home. In this case our client was therefore seeking approximately £150,000 life cover for a 25 year repayment mortgage.
So what made this case difficult? Unfortunately for him, our client was diagnosed in early childhood with his heart condition. Later on in his childhood our client had a surgical proceedure, which could be argued to have been mostly a success, though some some slight leakage was detected for a while after the operation. Over time the leakage appeared to stop and the client now lives a normal life.
We approached a number of insurance companies on behalf of our client who were generally reluctant to agree to provide life insurance. There were no other significant health conditions in this case and clearly most life companies remained nervous about the key underlying health condition - subaortic stenosis. Despite most life companies declining to offer the life insurance we persisted with our search. We know from experience that it does not always follow that every life company will view the same information in the same way and sometimes we have to pass by a number of closed doors before we find one that is open.
Which is exactly what happened in this case. We managed to find a life company who were willing to look at the case differently. After obtaining detailed medical information they were able to view the outcome of the operation more favourably. Whilst they wished to charge a small additional amount to reflect some additional risk, they did not regard the additional health risk factors to be significant enough to warrant declining our client's application.
So the hard work and patience payed off and in the end we were able to acheive a very positive outcome for our client. Not only were we able to find the total amount of cover that our client was seeking, but we were able to do so at a very attractive premium of less than £17pm.
What a great result!
At Moneysworth we do our best to help everyone who comes to us with a health condition to obtain life cover. We deal with a lot of heart related medical conditions, especially heart attacks, angina and heart by passes. However there are of course a number of other heart conditions, including subaortic stenosis.
Like so many who come to us this client was seeking life insurance to cover his mortgage so that the remaining mortgage debt would be cleared in the event of his death, thereby providing him and his family with peace of mind knowing that should the worst happen the family would still have thier home. In this case our client was therefore seeking approximately £150,000 life cover for a 25 year repayment mortgage.
So what made this case difficult? Unfortunately for him, our client was diagnosed in early childhood with his heart condition. Later on in his childhood our client had a surgical proceedure, which could be argued to have been mostly a success, though some some slight leakage was detected for a while after the operation. Over time the leakage appeared to stop and the client now lives a normal life.
We approached a number of insurance companies on behalf of our client who were generally reluctant to agree to provide life insurance. There were no other significant health conditions in this case and clearly most life companies remained nervous about the key underlying health condition - subaortic stenosis. Despite most life companies declining to offer the life insurance we persisted with our search. We know from experience that it does not always follow that every life company will view the same information in the same way and sometimes we have to pass by a number of closed doors before we find one that is open.
Which is exactly what happened in this case. We managed to find a life company who were willing to look at the case differently. After obtaining detailed medical information they were able to view the outcome of the operation more favourably. Whilst they wished to charge a small additional amount to reflect some additional risk, they did not regard the additional health risk factors to be significant enough to warrant declining our client's application.
So the hard work and patience payed off and in the end we were able to acheive a very positive outcome for our client. Not only were we able to find the total amount of cover that our client was seeking, but we were able to do so at a very attractive premium of less than £17pm.
What a great result!
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