Life Insurance with a brain tumour

DebsDD

I hope someone can help me or offer some advice. My partner and I are in the process of buying a house together. We need both salaries to be able to afford the mortgage, as most people do these days. The prpblem is my partner has a brain tumour which was diagnosed more than 10 years ago and the doctor's think he was born with, it has never caused him any problems and he has never had any symptoms. It was diagnosed when he took part in a clinical trial. He has had regularly MRI scans that show it has not changed in that time.

The issue is that he has been turned down by two companies now for life insurance. We wanted insurance to cover the mortgage if he dies, the policy we had investigated went down each year as the mortgage amount went down, I don't know if there is a particular name for this?

Has anyone had any experience like this before and any suggestions what we can do or a company that will insure him?

thanks

Debs

dunstonh

the policy we had investigated went down each year as the mortgage amount went down, I don't know if there is a particular name for this?

decreasing term assurance.

Has anyone had any experience like this before and any suggestions what we can do or a company that will insure him?

Forget mainstream policies. He will need a special risks policy. Expect it to be expensive as well. Possibly prohibitively so.

lisyloo

Does your partner have death in service benefits at work? or any benefits that come with his pension(s)?

If he has a 3 times salary or 4 times salary benefit at work then this may be sufficient, however you must remeber to review this if he changes his job or loses it.

DebsDD

Yes he does but obviously the problem could arise that he is made redundant and then the death in service benefit wouln't apply. Not that there is any suggestion of redundancy at the moment but you just never know what might happen in the next 25 years!

ACG

If your worried about redundancy or sickness, have a look at Income Protection or Unemployment cover.

Unemployment cover as far as im aware doesnt get underwritten so you should be fine with that, however those policies will only cover the mortgage and related bills (home insurance etc, and usually only pay out for 12 or 24 months max).

Income Protection will pay out a benefit upto around 65% of your income if the client becomes unable to work. Imnot sure how that would be looked at in the event of being underwritten but i imagine an exclusion or rating will apply.

dunstonh

PHI would be underwritten at point of sale and an PPI would be a bit risky as its underwritten at point of claim and a pre existing condition like that isnt worth the risk of the insurer rejecting it, IMO.

kevin_c_3

I'd suggest trying a company such as Partnership who specialise in life cover for people with existing health issues, though you may need to go through an IFA for this, which is rarely a bad thing