Life Insurance - Medical Questions - Not knowing an answer 26 July 2022 at 10:52PM in Insurance & life assurance 6 replies 182 views

User982451

I have a question about life insurance. In questionnaires, there are questions like 'Have you ever had disease X?'. For some conditions, I may not know what to answer because I may be not sure whether I had it in the past or not. I lived in other countries before (not UK), and it is non-trivial, if possible at all, to retrieve all medical records from other countries.

Has anyone had a similar situation in the past when applying for life insurance? Can anyone provide a suggestion what to do in such a case?

marcia_

User982451 said:

I have a question about life insurance. In questionnaires, there are questions like 'Have you ever had disease X?'. For some conditions, I may not know what to answer because I may be not sure whether I had it in the past or not. I lived in other countries before (not UK), and it is non-trivial, if possible at all, to retrieve all medical records from other countries.

Has anyone had a similar situation in the past when applying for life insurance? Can anyone provide a suggestion what to do in such a case?

 How would you not know if you had an illness or not? I know my medical history without needing to check my medical records 

user1977

I suppose the pragmatic answer might be that if you can't get hold of your old records, neither will the insurance company when you make a claim. But assuming these are fairly serious and/or chronic conditions, which ones are they asking about and why don't you know the answer?

Sandtree

Out of curiosity what medical condition are they asking about which you aren't sure?

Most tend to be fairly significant and so people would know even if they may struggle to remember exact dates, readings, medications etc

dunstonh

Have you ever had disease X?'. For some conditions, I may not know what to answer because I may be not sure whether I had it in the past or not. I lived in other countries before (not UK), and it is non-trivial, if possible at all, to retrieve all medical records from other countries.

The questions that are specific about a condition ask about serious issues you would know about.     For more minor short-term ailments, these are captured within the last 3-5 years question.  Surely you remember you would remember serious issues or recent issues?

User982451

Thank you. There may be questions like 'have you ever had':

• raised sugar in your urine
• raised blood glucose
• any heart disease / disorder, e.g. heart attack, angina, heart related chest pain, heart enlargement, irregular / rapid heart beat, or any other heart condition
• abnormal liver function test
• any disorder or abnormality of the blood vessels

Obviously, if a person ever had a heart attack (or diabetes, or something quite serious), they almost certainly remember that, but they might not remember whether they have ever had (and it was identified or suggested by a clinician) (but they don't have it now or are not aware of having it now) something less serious, e.g., raised blood glucose, rapid heart beat, abnormal liver function test, not serious heart enlargement or stable angina, especially if that was a long time ago and when they were quite young.

(I won't comment regarding me personally on the forum, but I hope the examples above are helpful for the question.)

user1977

If it was something when they were young, which they've forgotten about because it was so minor and it's never cropped up again - it's hardly likely to be something which kills them. And like I said, if the policyholder can't get hold of their own historic medical records now, how are the insurers going to manage it possibly decades in the future?