Smoking after Taking out Life Insurance

kingstreet

starrystarry wrote: »

Finally, no insurance company would carry out a cotinine test on a dead person. The very thought :eek:

So it's never been done?

starrystarry

kingstreet wrote: »

So it's never been done?

I can't be certain it's never been done, of course, but I can be certain it's not routine. For starters, by the time most people submit a death claim the funeral will have taken place, which would kind of make things difficult. Concerns about smoker status are only likely to arise when the insurance company has received a report from the GP and we all know how long they can take. The funeral is almost certain to have happened by then. I can't think of any scenario when an insurer would request a cotinine test for a death claim, but I'm open to suggestions.

kingstreet

I don't know either starry, hence the question. I read it back later and thought you might think I was being "arsey" which I wasn't!

I've been told it can be done by different people at several points in the past but I can't remember who told me. It's only anecdotal of course and could be complete rubbish.

If I remember, next time I'm talking to one of the life offices, I'll see if they'll put me through to claims to see what they say. I'll update when I can...

erdd2

Any significant change should be brought to the attention of all parties to a contract. The word significant is questionable. What is significant here, as anywhere is questionable. Consider the issues of contract law and that most insurance companies do not want to pay out. Add interpretation of law and language, interpretation etc....fair game for all parties to promulgate however common sense should prevail.

dunstonh

erdd2 wrote: »

Any significant change should be brought to the attention of all parties to a contract. The word significant is questionable. What is significant here, as anywhere is questionable. Consider the issues of contract law and that most insurance companies do not want to pay out. Add interpretation of law and language, interpretation etc....fair game for all parties to promulgate however common sense should prevail.

Virtually all mainstream policies require no notification of changes. They are a snapshot of what has the situation at point of application and what has gone before (and what is known about in future). Not the unknown future.

It does no harm to clarify but you would expect most to turn around and say they dont need to know.

Ronaldo_Mconaldo

Can i hijack this a little and ask about whether you need to tell the insurance company if you are pregnant? We are three years ino our 5 year policy. I asked on my own thread but only got one reply. Anyway, i would think it would be an important issue for life insurance but then again you would think that they would take that into account when we took out the policy.

GingerWarrior

Ronaldo_Mconaldo wrote: »

Can i hijack this a little and ask about whether you need to tell the insurance company if you are pregnant? We are three years ino our 5 year policy. I asked on my own thread but only got one reply. Anyway, i would think it would be an important issue for life insurance but then again you would think that they would take that into account when we took out the policy.

Best thing would be to read the Cover Details of your policy, and if doesn't state anything in there, then give them a call.

But it may be a case of you not having to disclose anything further once the policy is active

starrystarry

kingstreet wrote: »

I don't know either starry, hence the question. I read it back later and thought you might think I was being "arsey" which I wasn't!

I've been told it can be done by different people at several points in the past but I can't remember who told me. It's only anecdotal of course and could be complete rubbish.

If I remember, next time I'm talking to one of the life offices, I'll see if they'll put me through to claims to see what they say. I'll update when I can...

Cotinine tests can either be done via urine sample or saliva sample. Obviously we can rule urine tests out after death. I suppose in theory you could get a saliva sample after death but it would have to be done quite quickly otherwise the sample would be contaminated. Do let us know if you manage to ask a claims person.

OshayAway

All disclosures are only relevant at point of application, or to be more specific, policy start date.There are two exceptions to this:
1. Know changes at start date
2. Foreign residency

In other words, someone could take out a term assurance policy on 1st January and start chain-smoking on 2nd
January with out compromising their cover in any way. Providing they answered the questions correctly regarding tobacco and NRPs for the 12 months prior to application. They are not required to inform the insurer.

However, using that same scenario, if an individual, at time of application, was in the process of changing occupation to something high risk like a steeplejack, test pilot etc, they would need to inform the insurer as that change was known about at the point of application / policy start date.

The foreign residency has to do with the validity of the policy. Even if a policy was arranged many years prior to move and in no way forseen at point of application, there are specific criteria relating to this in order for a policy to remain valid. This does vary from provider to provider to some degree.