Life insurance - medical history

charliewocka

Hi everyone,


About to finalise on the purchase of our house and have been looking at life insurance. I applied to Legal & General and have answered all their medical questions honestly. I have a history of eating disorders and at one stage depression (linked to the ED) which led to me seeing a psychiatrist for a short while which helped massively. I have now been 'incident' free for about two and a half years and have not received treatment during this time - I have regular chats to my GP to check on progress and my partner and family/friends are heavily involved in my monitoring. In addition I had a period of stress earlier this year - I am a carer for my brother with a disability, my partner had a serious accident that resulted in me nursing and caring, some issues with his ex partner arose and I had the death of three ex-partners within a couple of years so all a bit turbulent! But things improving now! Oh, and I had to declare my mother's stroke which she had in her 30s!


L&G have said they could not insure me online and would have one of their assessment team review my case and call me to discuss. I am aware that they will be discussing sensitive information with them and I will be 100% honest. I appreciate that my premiums will be higher based on this (not too extortionate I hope!) but I am worried that they may refuse to cover me.


Has anybody else with mental health issues (or family stroke) experienced this? Would appreciate some discussion.....

InsideInsurance

Are you going direct with L&G or going via an IFA/advisory broker?

I'd personally consider the opinion of a trained professional that has placed thousands of policies for people with psych issues or adverse family history over the experience of a person that has only dealt with their own policy and if not under the advice of a professional could well have made some poor choices (or lucky ones) unknowingly

charliewocka

Hi InsideInsurance,


I had gone to them direct and for some reason hadn't thought about using a broker for it. Will investigate this ASAP.

charliewocka

Have just spoken to a broker and disclosed all information and they are going to call some underwriters and get back to me. Thanks for the suggestion InsideInsurance, it's put my mind at ease greatly!

InsideInsurance

Its no more expensive going via a broker, most business does go this route to insurers dont bite the hand that feeds by under cutting them on direct customers.

Whilst I am a general insurance rather than life person I did initially think I could deal with it all myself directly given I've worked in insurance for longer than I want to admit but even I found that a good broker was worth their weight in gold as no matter what I tried I simply didnt have access to the right people and was being screened out by non-tech staff

pinkteapot

charliewocka wrote: »

Have just spoken to a broker and disclosed all information and they are going to call some underwriters and get back to me. Thanks for the suggestion InsideInsurance, it's put my mind at ease greatly!

Well done! We used a broker for life assurance as hubby has medical issues.

With life assurance, insurers don't generally load your premium (charge you more). They just decide whether or not to insure you. Brokers know which insurers are amenable to different medical conditions.

We only ended up paying a few pounds per month more for our insurance than the headline quotes you get on sites before entering any medical details.

InsideInsurance

pinkteapot wrote: »

We only ended up paying a few pounds per month more for our insurance than the headline quotes you get on sites before entering any medical details.

Mine actually ended up be a lot less than the headline rates despite my medical conditions.... though I got a letter afterwards saying they'd forgotten to add the fat båstard loading but would honour the policy/price as it'd been offered and paid :rotfl:

pinkteapot

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Mine actually ended up be a lot less than the headline rates despite my medical conditions.... though I got a letter afterwards saying they'd forgotten to add the fat båstard loading but would honour the policy/price as it'd been offered and paid :rotfl:

Maybe hubby's slightly higher premium was due to that loading, rather than his medical conditions. I won't tell him. :rotfl:

starrystarry

pinkteapot wrote: »

With life assurance, insurers don't generally load your premium (charge you more). They just decide whether or not to insure you. Brokers know which insurers are amenable to different medical conditions.

This isn't correct. Loadings (increased premiums) are common on life assurance policies.

charliewocka

Thanks everyone, was a relief to chat it through with the broker who was very non-judgemental about it all. Waiting to hear back next week. Happy to pay a loading if necessary. Have been told my mothers early stroke shouldn't cause loading as there were circumstances leading to it and the mental health shouldn't be too severe.

I am using an insurance broker who works with the same company as our mortgage broker. He was fantastic and did an amazing job with us so fingers crossed the life insurance broker will be as good!