Why is it so hard for me to get income protection insurance?

stephenni1971

I too feel that the stress is the issue with your loading.

When assessing your application they will take into account any abnormal circumstances that may have caused your situation - for example I deal a lot with armed forces and their wives can be subject to high stress with their husbands deployed. Insurers will normally accept this as EVENT DRIVEN - ie there is a clear defined underlying cause for the stress - and won't normally load as once hubby returns source fo stress is removed.

You seem to earn a good wage if you are looking 3k of cover - you have lost weight and are much healthier - yet of your own volition you have approached your GP and asked for counselling support. That is going to make the underwriters wary - hence they are covering their own backs with the loading.

Look at it from their side - you have admitted seeking help for what is one of the single biggest causes of claim they face.

InsideInsurance

starrystarry wrote: »

With all due respect to your doctor, he isn't an income protection underwriter, so he shouldn't really comment on it. He may be a medical expert, but he's by no means an expert when it comes to assessing the risks involved here.

And at the same time underwriters arent medical experts at all. Ok stress is evidently fairly common and mainstream but certainly when you start getting into rarer conditions their knowledge and decisions get ever more out of date and ridiculous.

My own 12 month saga in trying to get income protection sorted out was proof of the above given I had one u/w advise that they couldnt provide cover unless I'd had "the tumour removed" - problem is that whilst the condition is most commonly caused by a tumour mine isnt, its effectively a birth defect, but trying to explain that I dont have a tumour to be able to have one removed didn't go down well.

A second underwriter declined on the risk of having taken infected medication. Trying to explain that there had indeed been issues with earlier batches of the medication but the last known infected batch being in 1977 which was before I was born let alone the fact I didnt start taking it until late 1981 didnt mean anything to them.

Unfortunately my condition is one of those blanket ones where you could claim almost anything is associated with it and thus not wanting to exclude it in my case.

Have to say after 9 months was recommended a different broker who did managed to get a quote. Quote came in high but they had a discussion with the insurer, about what I dont know, and the quote was revised down to what had originally been suggested.

Getting the pre-existing condition excluded is always a good option if you are comfortable in doing so. These types of insurance as much more personal though than general insurance and it really is key to get a good broker/ advisor working for you as the good ones have direct access to the decision makers and will actively pursue the whole matter for you.

mpreed

My biggest issue with the whole saga is that the underwriters seem to be cocooned away and unwilling to discuss specific issues. They just hand down their verdict.

At every stage of this application I emphasised the reasons for my going to the coucillor and that it was unconnected to stress and I was prepared to get written confirmation of this from the councillor or get any 'proof' of this that they required.

Presuming the rejections / premium doubling were due to stress, they have not taken me up on this offer, so I do feel aggrieved that they are making such decisions on incomplete information.

The latest is that the insurers will mail my GP with the reason for the loading and I have to appeal through him. Which is progress, but I can't help thinking that this whole thing could be much less of a hassle (nearly said stressful!:p) if the underwriters made more of an effort to understand circumstances more fully as whilst my GP is not knowledgable in underwriting, I would argue it was equally, of not more important, for underwriters to understand the medical issues they are making such decisions on.

weighty1_2

To be honest, I don't think the stress is the issue at all. The only time I've seen PHI cases be declined due to stress is when it is so severe, or there has been so much recent time off work that the insurers feel it is not a good risk. It would be standard practice for there to be a mental health exclusion and from what you've said I don't think there's any reason for that not to be the case here.

I agree with Starrystarry regarding the fact that your doctor isn't an underwriter and therefore shouldn't really be commenting on why you are being declined. I get this on a regular basis and it's a real bone of contention with me. Underwriters assess long term risk whereas doctors generally treat the hear and now. Even with your higher premium just a 12-month claim would eradicate 7.5years worth of premiums being paid in. It's a pretty big risk for any insurer, especially since claims on PHI plans tend to run over very long periods.

You say you revamped your lifestyle at the start of the year and have since lost 3stones. This is where I feel the problem lies. Some insurers will still assess clients at a previous bodyweight until the weight lost has remained off for a minimum of 6-12months (depending on the provider). If you were completely outside the parameters with which they would cover you previously, they might not actually be being that harsh by applying a 100% loading.

Also, most providers who offer PHI start to decline applicants where loadings get to 150% and above, much less than those on life applications, so you have a combination of recent weight loss, with a previously abnormal blood test result and this, i feel, is the likely issue. Also, whilst the nurse who did the medical said you might have been the easiest to deal with this does not necessarily mean that the results of a blood test (presuming another was taken) were normal. Also it is highly unlikely they know what the insurers see as fine or not in regards to waist measurements.

Whenever an unexpected loading occurs with my clients I ALWAYS speak to the underwriters and in most instances you can glean enough information to ascertain what the reason is, even if it was due to something not directly on the application. You can ask for a copy of the medical results to be sent to you and depending on the provider they will sometimes show the breakdown of blood tests and whether or not your figures were within the norm values. I'd suggest doing this in the first instance and taking it from there.

mpreed

Hi - thanks for your reply.

There was no blood test done as part of the medical - just a urine test which I passed with no issues.

I too wondered if the weight loss / change of lifestyle might be affecting the loading, but neither the initial form nor the medical included that information, even though I was open about it. It may have come up in my doctor's report but when I went to see him just to check I was losing weight not too hastily (I was fine) he didn't go into specifics so doubt he would have been able to quote my before and after weight.

The insurers I tried to get a policy with this time last year did turn me down because of the 'stress' incident over ten years ago and the more recent request of my GP to recommend a councillor. At first this was one of the reasons and they said it wouldn't qualify on it's own as a reason for rejection but when I went back with improved blood test results, they rejected me solely on the stress factors.

Whilst I agree my GP doesn't know the underwriting process, I don't feel this precludes him from being able to say if anything in the report he wrote was serious enough to cause alarm. And his report covered my long term history, hence him including the stress report from over ten years ago. He never said I shouldn't have been rejected, he merely stated that in his opinion there was no outstanding issues in my report that he thought would have caused me to be rejected. He emphasised in his opinion.

It would be ironic if I were being loaded due to my healthy changes, as surely this change should be a positive thing rather than, in effect, my being penalised for taking better care of myself! I have stayed at my reduced weight and kept up my current healthier regime for about 9 months now.

If this is the reason then it strikes me as another area where the underwriting process could be more transparent. If they said up front that the increased loading was due to wanting to see if I stayed with this regime then why don't they say that instead of just telling me they want to charge me an extra £200 a month with no reason to explain? Also, how do they know how long I've been at this weight since they didn't ask for any information about it.

All speculation of course until I hear from them what the reason was.

As for the insurer not 'being that harsh' by increasing the loading to effectively doubly my premium, I would say that was fairly harsh especially with no reason given to justify it. Yes, the loading could have been more, but still I think increasing the premium by £200 a month is harsh.

I just think the whole underwriting process is overly complex and cocooned. The process I need to follow just to find out what the reason for the loading is, and challenge it is -

1 - I speak to my broker
2 - He speaks to the insurers
3 - The broker mails my GP with the reason
4 - My GP tells me when he has the mail
5 - I discuss it with my GP
6 - I can only respond via my GP so he has to mail them back and let me know when they respond.

It really isn't open, transparent and user friendly is it?

starrystarry

mpreed wrote: »

I just think the whole underwriting process is overly complex and cocooned. The process I need to follow just to find out what the reason for the loading is, and challenge it is -

1 - I speak to my broker
2 - He speaks to the insurers
3 - The broker mails my GP with the reason
4 - My GP tells me when he has the mail
5 - I discuss it with my GP
6 - I can only respond via my GP so he has to mail them back and let me know when they respond.

It really isn't open, transparent and user friendly is it?

It depends on the insurer. This particular insurer seems to be making it overly complicated for some reason. Ordinarily you should be able to speak to the underwriters about it. I talk to customers all the time to explain the reasons for our decisions. I'd only insist on writing to the GP about it if the reason for the decline was particularly sensitive. Have you actually asked whether you can speak to an underwriter?

mpreed

starrystarry wrote: »

It depends on the insurer. This particular insurer seems to be making it overly complicated for some reason. Ordinarily you should be able to speak to the underwriters about it. I talk to customers all the time to explain the reasons for our decisions. I'd only insist on writing to the GP about it if the reason for the decline was particularly sensitive. Have you actually asked whether you can speak to an underwriter?

I have, but my broker has told me this is how the insurers want it to be done.

But you're right, each insurers will be different and I just seem to be picking difficult ones.

Are there any who can be recommended for east of communication (to the underwriters) and who do stress / anxiety exclusions (again presuming this is the issue that is causing the, er, issues)?

ACG

I cant say this with any conviction but im thinking your broker didnt do the work that was required at the outset. If you do the work at the beginning then it means the underwriters have more info to go at and can be more precise when requesting info from the GP - but by your own admission your broker isnt a protection expert so they probably wont know but it will be a good learning curve from them.

But again looking at this from an underwriters point of view, theyre not trained to give you potentially bad news. Especially stress - it could be one of those things that send you under (obviously not in this instance, but the underwriters dont know that) so theyre passing it over to someone more qualified to break the news gently.

Most will offer exclusions, no underwriter will speak to you though.

starrystarry

ACG wrote: »

I cant say this with any conviction but im thinking your broker didnt do the work that was required at the outset. If you do the work at the beginning then it means the underwriters have more info to go at and can be more precise when requesting info from the GP - but by your own admission your broker isnt a protection expert so they probably wont know but it will be a good learning curve from them.

But again looking at this from an underwriters point of view, theyre not trained to give you potentially bad news. Especially stress - it could be one of those things that send you under (obviously not in this instance, but the underwriters dont know that) so theyre passing it over to someone more qualified to break the news gently.

Most will offer exclusions, no underwriter will speak to you though.

That's not necessarily true ACG, we speak to customers all the time. It's not often that we wouldn't be prepared to speak directly to a customer. Perhaps some companies are different, but not in my experience. People seem to think that underwriters are not approachable but increasingly that isn't the case. We're part of customer services after all.

InsideInsurance

From my experience of the 5 or so companies I dealt with none of the actual underwriters were willing to talk on the phone but most had "underwriting assistants" or other such named teams that were willing to talk but to be honest were little better than the standard customer service call centre.

The other complexity with mine was that all the insurers said they had written directly to my GP with the reason for decline and wouldnt write to either me nor my brokers but my GP claimed never to have received any of the 6 or so letters claimed to be sent - but had received all the requests for reports and the fees of cause

Whilst some insurers may be different, personally I would maintain that having a good broker/ advisor is the key in this market if youre anything but the perfect risk. Even with a fully on board doctor, and the insurers own doctor supporting your case underwriters can make some odd decisions which only brokers (in my experience) seem able to get reviewed effectively.