Life insurance

[BertMk2]

When I took out the illness/injury cover for my mortgage they asked if I did any "dangerous" sports (motorsport was specifically included in the list), it did increase the premium but not by a great amount (couple of pounds a month I think). Took the advisor quite by surprise though - I was the first person that they had seen that answered "yes" to that particular question!

[davyboy]

Watch the critical illness cover. There was an expose on BBC Watchdog about it a couple of weeks ago and it would appear that insurance companies will do everything in their power to wriggle out of settling a claim here and they cited some highly unethical examples from major well known providers. According to the programme, critical illness cover has the highest percentage of failed claimes when compared with all other types of policy i.e. household, motor, life etc... They estimated that nearly 2M people in the UK were relying on 'non-valid' policies and advised that people check in detail precisely what's covered and what's not... AND whether all of your medical history [including immediate family] was disclosed.

Word of warning there.

[steveng]

I agree about the companies and their attitude to critical illness cover. They sure do like to wriggle out. As a heart specialist I get involved in cases when the companies have tried to get out of paying up on policies as the illness didn't fit their own (often fairly weird) definitions. Recently I had a patient who had suffered a heart attack by pretty much anyones' definition of a heart attack. However he had not gone to hospital soon enough to have had the particular blood test that the insurance company needed to fit their criteria for myocardial infarction, all total bo***cks. Eventually they gave in (shame on them that they didn't sooner with good grace).
I suggest that the type of cover one needs is one that pays out if you are unable to do your job for any reason regardless of the cause. Then it doesn't matter if it is a racing accident or cancer of the big toe.
I'm at Rockingham this weekend.....Are the walls hard?

[Tim Wilkinson]

Originally Posted by BertMk2

When I took out the illness/injury cover for my mortgage they asked if I did any "dangerous" sports (motorsport was specifically included in the list), it did increase the premium but not by a great amount (couple of pounds a month I think). Took the advisor quite by surprise though - I was the first person that they had seen that answered "yes" to that particular question!

Ditto, I mentioned that I held a race license even though I hadn't actively raced. It made very little difference - in fact my final premium after honestly disclosing everything they wanted was less than my initial approximate quote, so racing doesn't seem to have that much effect. They had a series of quite in-depth questions about the category that I competed in, though.