Sickness/Disability Insurance

[Sonia]

Hello all, hope you are all doing fine or as best as you can, since this is probably the worst time of year for joints!!
It must be at least August since I last posted but have been busy all term, and only 3 days off(a blooming miracle) but I have gone down to a 4 day week.

Anyway usual joints flaring up but more to the point having recently renewed our mortgage(trying to move), I have been initially declined critical illness and sickness cover. I'm hoping they'll reach a final decision with certain clauses but it doesn't look hopeful. I did have to have my medical file looked at and I'm not sure if it's because of the mitral valve or the connective tissue disorder or both?

Anybody else have trouble with this sort of insurance? Or have you had better luck elsewhere? Please let me know so I can make some informed decisions.

Take care all!!

son xx

[Sue New]

Dear Sonia,

I am sorry you are having trouble with the critical illness cover. When we applied for our mortgage about 6 years ago now, I had to declare that I had had a pre-cancerous colon polyp removed. It took a while for the insurers to come back before telling me they were not willing to underwrite my life insurance cover . Instead my hubby took out life insurance on his half of the mortgage and I opened up an ISA account to pay enough in each month to cover my half (hopefully ). As my company also offers Death In Service which is 4 times my salary I feel pretty comfortable that my half of the mortgage will be covered if the worse were to happen to me. I don't think I mentioned about my then diagnosed HMS at the time (to be honest I can't quite remember - I just know it was the pre-cancer that caused all the problems. I did not even think about taking the critical illness cover as I knew with all my pre-existing problems I wouldn't be covered for anything. It would have come in very handy in this last year or so though .

I know this won't help for the critical illness part of things, but perhaps you could consider taking out an ISA (or something similar) to cover off your part of the mortgage. I am not really an expert on financial matters, but the ISA was the suggestion made by our bank's financial adviser at the time (he is also a good friend of ours so we feel happy that he was giving us the best advise he could give us).

Good luck

Sue.

[Sez]

I don't have life cover on our mortgage and I don't think my critical illness will cover EDS (although my diagnosis at the time of taking out the mortgage was HMS and they didn't seem to think that was as serious ). Life cover for me would have been £200 a month, and life cover for Jay even higher, so we simply can't afford it. When he starts working again, we're going to open an ISA savings account and start putting aside as much as we can afford, should the worst happen to either of us.

[nickb]

They wouldn't cover me either-but not because of the HMs ( I really tried to play it down at the medical )

Mine was because of my weight to height ratio, and the history of diabeties in the family

They are so picky and seem to find any small reason not to insure people

[Retro]

Or they take you on but then find a reason to refuse to pay when you try to claim

[Sonia]

So true. I'm hoping they can provide some cover for other things i.e. I have no family history of cancer, ms or mental insanity(?!), but I can understand why they won't cover heart or joint probs. The guy in the company said they may be able to write in some clauses. We wait and see...
Son xx

[nonyanomemory]

insurance

Above link provided by nickb in another thread on this site.

nonya

[Sez]

As our finances have only got worse and not better over the last year, I am trying to find places we can make serious cut backs. We have cut back to £40 a month on luxuries which includes going out (infrequently), hubby's tobacco and very basic Sky TV (we're tied into a contract). I need to get rid of even more. I am even (despite hating the idea desperately) advertising for a sharer for my horse, and if one is not forthcoming I will have to sell him . I'm devastated because he's really the only thing that's holding me together at the moment, and I feel like I'm losing everything I care about because OH is either too selfish or too stupid to see what he's doing to us. He is still holding out for a miracle and makes a vague attempt to go through the jobs paper once a week, but I haven't seen a single rejection letter for months, even though he claims he's applying for jobs and being turned down.

Anyway, my post was supposed to be about health/disability insurance for mortgages. When we bought our house, we took out this insurance that would supposedly pay out in the event that one of us lost our job through sickness/disability/redundancy etc. We tried to claim back in November when Jay lost his job, but because the "official" story is that his contract ended, they wouldn't pay up, and I knew they wouldn't honor the claim if we'd gone with the barebones of the truth which was that they wanted him to quit, so it was mutually decided that he would.

However, we're still paying almost £40 a month for this insurance. Why on earth am I paying for it?? It just seems like such a waste of money and I get the impression that they will fight tooth and claw to avoid paying out in the event of a claim.

Is there an actual reason to have this sort of insurance? Is it worth hanging on to?

[sillyoldbear]

hi sez

im sorry but im not an expert on insurance companies i do have a similar thing with my catalogues.

would it possibly be an idea to finish the contract with the insurance company and put away the £40 into a separate bank account for emergencies or crisis in the future.

i know you are struggling now and need the money. if it was me i would probably terminate the insurance policy and keep £30 of the £40 each month and put the other £10 into savings for an emergency. i truely believe that with these policies you spend more paying into them, its the same with pensions (imho). so i have started saving into an account so that i can have my own pension and so i will recieve all my money. maybe you could do a similar sort of thing

sorry of that doesnt make sense and hope it helps

simone

[roqchiq]

I have mixed feelings about 'income protection' insurance. I took it out when I got my mortgage and made a claim when I had to quit work due to CFS. My policy had a 12 month deferrment period and although they were slow to pay out at first I figured they'd have it sorted by the time the 12 months were up. If only - it took them 2-3 years to finally pay up, but it was a struggle and I feel I could have put my energy to better use trying to get better rather than writing letters and dragging myself off to the GP to get medical reports. OTOH when the money did finally come through it was VERY useful.

Having seen the difficulties I've had, my husband doesn't see the point in taking out a policy himself. He says if anything happens we'll just have to cut back

Sorry, i've rambled a bit and it doesn't really answer your question, but hopefully it gives you some more info to help you decide.

[Retro]

Hi Sez,

I think as long as one of you is working it is worth having but you could shop around for a cheaper policy. Check the policy details. Some will have a deferrment period, some will only pay the interest at the rate in force when the loan was taken out. Make sure they will cover EDS related illness/disability. If you don't have a policy and you have to stop work for whatever reason the DWP won't pay your mortgage interest for about 9 months.

I also found that some insurance policies would not pay out when I had to stop work due to CFS. One did but that was at the rate in force when the loan was originally agreed leaving a shortfall.

Hope this helps a little.

Lindsey

[firefairy]

This is actually quite a worry to me too, i am trying to claim about my shoulder i only got my dx of hms 3 weeks ago but if they decide it was a preexisting condition then i will not get a pay out then i cant afford my morgage and that is a whole kettle of worms

[vh86]

Hi

This is an old thread, but thought I would resurrect it rather than start a new one. I am in the process of getting a mortgage and am looking at insurance. I was hoping to take out income protection insurance, but my mortgage guy has tried 7 companies and only 1 will even consider covering me because of my HMS and that would be with a 100% mark up on the premiums. I have been in my job 15 months and haven't taken 1 day off sick and I don't have any other risk factors.

Has anyone else had any success in taking out this kind of insurance with a pre-existing condition and are you able to recommend a company? Thought it might be worth having a look myself.

Thanks xxx

[Tiz]

I really don't fancy your chances I'm afraid, you're just too big a risk. I have life insurance cover for our mortgage but didn't take out the critical illness since they wanted an extortionate ammount for it and wouldn't cover me for physical disability of any kind, even if it was caused by a car crash rather than the EDS. I'm not working so didn't even attempt income insurance but I can't imagine I'd have had any chance of getting that since I had several months out from my PhD when my walking problems started. You should be able to get life insurance since EDS 3 isn't life threatening but I don't think you'll get anything else.