Life insurance for someone with Coronary Artery Disease

sysadmin

To cut a long story short.
I'm 34, barely drink, never smoked and exercise regularly. Married, father of 3 with a decent £50k pa job and we owe about £150k on the mortgage with about 20 years remaining.

In November, i had to have a stent fitted in my LAD due to a 100% blockage. No heart attack, just discomfort whilst exercising were the only symptoms. So it came as a bit of a shock...

Anyway, we've always had decreasing term mortgage protection should anything happen. I've not (as yet) informed the insurance company (so i know any claim would probably be invalid) and plan on getting onto them this week.

Do companies still provide insurance in these situations? Is the premium stupidly expensive?
I think we're paying about £18 a month at the moment . .

Quentin

Your current insurer won't require you to inform them of any medical conditions you develop during the lifetime of your policy


(That's the idea of life insurance - your premium is set based on your health when the policy starts!)

sysadmin

oh - so, i don't need to tell them?
Think I need to read through the policy

Aretnap

sysadmin wrote: »

oh - so, i don't need to tell them?

Almost certainly not. That's the deal - you answer questions about your health when you take the policy out, and the insurer agrees to cover the risk that you'll die in the next X years. That includes the risk that your health will deteriorate gradually over the next X years, as well as the risk that you'll be suddenly struck down by a car accident or heart attack. So any changes to your health don't affect the policy, and so there's no need to tell the insurer about them.

If it were any other way then there'd be little point in having life insurance. If the insurer could cancel the policy, or hike the premium up to unaffordable levels, as soon as it looked as if you might pop your clogs, then it would provide no protection for anything other than the most sudden deaths - and the large majority of premature deaths are not particularly sudden. So for the policy to provide meaningful protection, it has to remain unchanged by any new health problems which occur while it's in force.

So long as you answered the questions accurately at the time you took the policy out there will be no question of a claim being invalid.

sysadmin

Excellent - thank you.
Yes, the policy is about 8 years old and everything was answered truthfully at the time