Critical illness insurance claim - wish us luck!

gadgetmind

This insurance has now paid out in full and premiums paid to them since diagnosis have been returned. They also paid some interest, but it came to about a tenth of a percent of the sum so not really worth mentioning.

Thanks all for the advice. The money is now all being placed into a variety of retirement investments as we're effectively treating it as my wife's pension.

magpiecottage

Good result then.

I hope your wife makes a full recovery.

gadgetmind

magpiecottage wrote: »

Good result then.

Yup, particularly as we were starting to look at the £2k pa this was costing while sucking our teeth.

I hope your wife makes a full recovery.

The problem with cancer is that you never really know. With every year without any signs on it, chances improve. Fortunately, my wife was *way* over to the left hand side of the chart at the bottom of this cartoon.

http://xkcd.com/931/

dunstonh

At least its some good news in a world of bad. I hope all is good in future with the recovery.

gadgetmind

dunstonh wrote: »

At least its some good news in a world of bad. I hope all is good in future with the recovery.

Why, thank you! Given that she had what seems to have had "breast cancer light", but still enough to trigger the critical illness "pay" switch, we feel a bit like those peeps who spend months in a neck brace after a 5mph shunt, but we've told the truth throughout, and paid them whopping annual premiums for many a year.

As for "world of bad", I think we live in a world of tremendous opportunity, at least for those whose counties aren't saddled with civil war or famine, so why on earth are people complaining so?

Carpe diem.

Bigsmak

Been away for a few weeks and glad to come back and see this was sorted. Was interested to see how it worked out.

7-8 weeks is not really a long time to wait, especially if it is the kind of sum I think it is if you pay £2k a year into it.

Good luck with the future and while the money wont make anyone healthy it will help a lot.

One final point,

Would you recommend to others to take out critical illness cover as part of their complete financial planning?

gadgetmind

Bigsmak wrote: »

Good luck with the future and while the money wont make anyone healthy it will help a lot.

Yes, it's a handy sum. Some is going into NS&I linkers, some into cash savings, and some into a variety of FTSE shares to generate ongoing dividend income.

One final point,

Would you recommend to others to take out critical illness cover as part of their complete financial planning?

Yes, but they need to be aware of exactly what is and isn't covered, and I also recognise that it's *very* expensive, so it's far from being a "no brainer". We'd arranged ours to last until daughter finished university, but had already starting looking at the monthly cost and asking whether it was the best use of that money.

I now get 1x salary of CI cover via my employer and we probably won't do anything for my wife at least until she's got the all clear on the cancer.

Thanks for looking in on this one again.

minxy76_2

Hi, we're new to all this and have just read your thread with interest.

Firstly, glad to hear that your claim was successful and wish your wife a speedy and full recovery.

We have just ourselves sent a critical illness claim in to Scottish Widows after my husband was diagnosed with Solitary Bone Plasmacytoma. This is a cancer of the plasma cells. Whenever you look this cancer up, it is nearly always referred to as Myeloma.

To cut a long story short, we had no idea of him having cancer until he started to encounter back pain which was followed by numbness in both legs. This led to an emergency op as a tumor was discovered to be crushing his spinal cord. The operation was a success but he has been left with numbness and can't walk without a stick (we're not sure if this is going to be temporary, the Physio's can't answer this either).

Treatment is 5 weeks radical radiotherapy, followed by a course of Chemo. The prognosis is very good, the only cloud on the horizon is our financial situation as my husband is off work (being a postman, the walking bit is obviously a problem!), and we have no idea whether his cancer and what it has caused will be covered by the insurance.

The consultants say it's only in one place, but are treating it as though it's spread because they cannot guarantee it hasn't. Will this grey area benefit us or the insurers if the claim is turned down?

Their criteria stresses that the cancer must not be in-situ but as a cancer of the blood, does this still apply?

We're just clutching at straws really, I suppose we should just wait and see what happens.

gadgetmind

minxy76 wrote: »

The consultants say it's only in one place, but are treating it as though it's spread because they cannot guarantee it hasn't. Will this grey area benefit us or the insurers if the claim is turned down?

I'd be *very* surprised if it wasn't covered. I know it will be a few nail-biting weeks, but I don't think you have anything to be worried about regards this claim.

BTW, keep paying the premiums if you can afford to. If you can't, speak to the insurance company as they do have flexibility in this area.

Fingers crossed regards the claim, but even more so regards the medical side of things.

Please let us know how you get on.

minxy76_2

Thanks for replying, we are keeping everything crossed and will let you know how things develop.