Life Insurance / Critical Illness Cover

virgo149

We're just about to pay off our mortgage due to selling my late father in law's house. Both me and the hubby have life insurance with includes critical illness to cover us for the mortgage amount. The question is should we continue to pay this once the mortgage is paid off? It costs us in total about 70 quid a month. Any suggestions?

Edit: Meant to say mine and one joint policy is decreasing and the rest of the hubby's is level term.

jonesMUFCforever

You need to ask yourself how your standard of living would change if either of you had to stop work due to illness or even died.
Have you considered talking to an IFA to go through what you need and whether you need to make any changes?

Nick~C_3

Also consider if your health has deteriorated since you took out the original policy, since any policies taken out in the future may be more expensive and may include exclusions. Therefore you may be better off keeping your insurance as is if so, in case you move in the future and take on another mortgage.

Also if you took out critical illess cover before April 2004 then chances are that you may have more comprehensive cover since the rules changed at that time apparently.

stephenni1971

Nick~C wrote: »

Also consider if your health has deteriorated since you took out the original policy, since any policies taken out in the future may be more expensive and may include exclusions. Therefore you may be better off keeping your insurance as is if so, in case you move in the future and take on another mortgage.

Also if you took out critical illess cover before April 2004 then chances are that you may have more comprehensive cover since the rules changed at that time apparently.

Earlier CIC would have included full cover for prostate cancer & angioplasty, current cover excluded prostate up to level 6 and angioplasty BUT does for example cover silent heart attacks so there are gains and losses to look at when changing from an older CIC policy.

virgo149

Thanks all. Most recent policies were taken out in 2001 and we've tried to increase with a new policy a couple of years ago but the premiums were extortionate compared to current ones.

I take it, the ones we took out to cover the mortgage (decreasing) still pay out even without a mortgage in place?

I think we need to sit down with an IFA and work out what to do. It's a lovely position to be in I know but comes from great sadness.

jonesMUFCforever

Yes the policies will still pay out even though mortgage has been paid off.

OshayAway

stephenni1971 wrote: »

Earlier CIC would have included full cover for prostate cancer & angioplasty, current cover excluded prostate up to level 6 and angioplasty BUT does for example cover silent heart attacks so there are gains and losses to look at when changing from an older CIC policy.

Worth checking but I doubt any policies old enough to have comprehensive cover for prostate cancer and includes angioplasty would not also cover all types of heart attack including 'silent / pain free'.

The insurers that did introduce new criteria to only pay out on heart attacks that include 'typical symptoms' did so around 2004 / 2005 (from memory). Some did not introduce the changes at all and some that did have since reverted. There are currently plenty of companies that still exclude it and some that will pay out on silent heart attacks.