Critical illness cover

triton1

I was diagnosed with cancer 4 years ago and my consultant informed me that, should I have critical illness cover, it would be a qualifying diagnosis.

I reviewed our papers at the time but only found that we had life insurance. We have just recently received a letter from our mortgage provider advising us that our critical illness cover is due to end next month. I was not aware that we had this cover and can only assume it was tied to our mortgage somehow.

I am now tracking down the terms of our cover but I assume that I am now well outside the claim period.

Is it worth pursuing? The only true reason I have for not claiming sooner was that I didn’t know we had the cover in place.  

Does anyone have any experience of submitting critical illness claims several years after diagnosis, and if so, how successful were you? 

Thanks in advance.

dunstonh

. I was not aware that we had this cover and can only assume it was tied to our mortgage somehow.

It woudlnt be tied in with the mortgage.  It would have its own monthly direct debit.

I am now tracking down the terms of our cover but I assume that I am now well outside the claim period.

Technically yes but in reality, no.  The majority of insurers will access a claim outside of the 120 day window.    The only issues occur is that over time, records and information can get deleted and if tests are required, the outcome of those tests may be very different to what they would have been.    However, in most cases, none of that creates a problem.

Does anyone have any experience of submitting critical illness claims several years after diagnosis, and if so, how successful were you? 

yes.

Aretnap

Another complication is that whether it is a qualifying diagnosis will depend on the policy terms, which specify that it has to be one of a certain number of types of cancer, if a certain level of severity, measured by certain criteria. Not all critical illness policies are the same and the criteria vary significantly from policy to policy. So it seems unlikely that the consultant could have known for sure that your diagnosis qualified without seeing your policy - though it's definitely worth finding out.