Do we need to tell insurance company?

Cloan2 · 17 March 2018 at 10:14PM

Hi. My hubby has recently been diagnosed with a hereditary eye condition that means he has lost sight in one eye. Its called Lebers and is a rare family inherited condition. Been to see a consultant who said its only affected one of his eyes and he can still drive work etc and carry on as normal. Fingers crossed it does not affect his other eye! My question is do we need to tell our mortgage insurance company? Its mortgage insurance we have with critical illness cover. Assuming if we tell them they will either stop the policy or put the premiums up. Any advice greatly appreciated.

BooJewels · 17 March 2018 at 11:19PM

Sorry to hear about your husband's health issues. Your health at the time you started the policy is locked in for the lifetime of that policy - you don't need to inform them of any changes during the life of the policy.

If you make some changes to your mortgage during its life - maybe extend now long it will run - and want to extend the policy too, then you'd maybe need to start a new policy and then the current condition may impact on your ability to do that.

We found that ourselves when we wanted to extend the mortgage 5 years into the policy, but my husband's health had deteriorated and they wouldn't extend the policy, but they allowed us to keep the original 10 year policy, based on his health when he took it out. So, as of now, the policy runs for 30 months less than the mortgage. So that's perhaps the only way this change will impact on the mortgage and policy, so they may not provide cover, or charge an increased premium if you make changes to the term.

But please do check your policy booklet very carefully, as not getting this right could be very costly. But every policy we've had didn't require changes to be advised mid term

Tom99 · 18 March 2018 at 7:30AM

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Re driving, you need to inform the DVLA. Apparently its a criminal offence if you don't.

[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]https://help.rnib.org.uk/help/daily-living/transport-travel/monocular-drive[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Edit: Apparently the advice above from the RNIB is wrong. See post 7 below.[/FONT]

Robin9 · 18 March 2018 at 8:42AM

Does the fact that it's a hereditary condition make any difference when declaring health conditions ?

csgohan4 · 18 March 2018 at 9:52AM

Robin9 wrote: »

Does the fact that it's a hereditary condition make any difference when declaring health conditions ?

Not if you didn't know at the time of application. Like Huntingdon's you will not know until you get it.

However if you have declared your family history to you GP before and not to your insurers when asked specific questions, you will risk invalidating the insurance

BooJewels · 18 March 2018 at 10:44AM

csgohan4 wrote: »

However if you have declared your family history to you GP before and not to your insurers when asked specific questions, you will risk invalidating the insurance

That depends on the questions they asked of course - I suspect this is an area where there's huge variation. Ours were pretty vague and the only 'hereditary' question was about whether more than one immediate family member had suffered from certain conditions under the age of 55. A quick glance through mine shows there is no question where this would have been covered - other than maybe about whether you're undergoing any regular medical supervision or tests.

I think the OP needs to look at her original paperwork as well as the policy booklet to ensure that everything is done right - you don't want to find out the hard way that it's not (I speak as someone with a critical illness claim in progress - hence becoming very familiar with the details, hoping that they think it's as straightforward as it appears to us).

sheramber · 18 March 2018 at 1:47PM

Tom99 wrote: »

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Re driving, you need to inform the DVLA. Apparently its a criminal offence if you don't.

[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]https://help.rnib.org.uk/help/daily-living/transport-travel/monocular-drive[/FONT]

https://www.gov.uk/monocular-vision-and-driving

Car or motorbike licence

You don’t need to tell DVLA if you have monocular vision if you’re still able to meet the standards of vision for driving.

If you have a health condition in your functioning eye, check the rules for that condition in health conditions and driving.

Ask your GP, optician or eye specialist if you’re not sure if your monocular vision will affect your driving.

Cloan2 · 18 March 2018 at 9:08PM

Thanks for all replies. With regard to his eyesight he has lost central vision in one eye but still has peripheral vision. His other eye is perfectly fine. The consultant said so long as his good eye stays good then no need to advise dvla or any concerns re driving.

Aretnap · 19 March 2018 at 11:49AM

Cloan2 wrote: »

Assuming if we tell them they will either stop the policy or put the premiums up.

If they could do that there would be little point in having the policy. What use would a life/critical illness policy be if the insurer could cancel it or hike your premiums to unaffordable levels the moment it looked like you might be about to claim on it? In effect it would only cover the most sudden deaths and critical illnesses - and the large majority of premature deaths are not particularly sudden.

So how these policies (or 99% of them at any rate) actually work is that the insurer accepts you and sets your premium based on a snapshot of your health at the time you take out the policy. They agree to cover the risk that you'll die or get a critical illness in the next 25 (or however many) years, and that includes the risk that your health will deteriorate gradually over that time as well as the risk that you'll be suddenly struck down by a bolt of lightening or a heart attack. So long as you answer the questions about your health accurately at the time you take out the policy, and you keep paying your premiums, the insurer cannot change the terms,* even if your health takes a turn for the worse. So as above the only reason you might have to tell them would be if you wanted to change the terms of the policy yourself, eg by extending its duration or by increasing the amount of cover.

* Some policies are "reviewable" which means that the insurer CAN change your premium from time to time in response to changes in the market in general - for example because the rate of certain diseases has increased in the population at large, or because the investment returns they expected to get on your premium have been disppointing. However even these policies don't allow the insurer to change your premium on account of changes to your own personal health.

Do we need to tell insurance company?

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