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When you apply for life insurance or income protection, you will probably expect questions about your health, occupation, income and lifestyle.
But you may be surprised to find that insurers can also be very interested in your sports and hobbies.
You might not consider your hobby to be particularly risky. You may have been doing it safely for years without having an accident and you know all the steps that you take to make sure you are as safe as possible.
However, insurers can look at things differently. They are assessing the potential risk associated with the activity and how that could affect the likelihood of a claim. It’s not necessarily a comment on you, it’s the environment that you are in.
This means that something you consider to be a normal hobby could potentially affect your life insurance premium or the terms available on an income protection policy.

When you apply for life insurance, you will usually be given an estimated premium based on the information you provide. It isn’t always obvious that this is just an indication of what the cover may cost.
If the insurer asks medical questions about you or your family, your travel, work and hobbies, the final premium can sometimes be higher than the original quote. Most insurers will ask you about these things if you are applying for a typical life insurance policy in the UK.
This can sometimes make people feel worried, or potentially even angry at the insurers, particularly if you were expecting the cover to be available at the price you were originally shown.
Let’s go through why life insurance prices can change.

We are receiving more and more enquiries from people using artificial intelligence for life insurance. This can be a really useful way for people who are not used to the insurance world, to put together a clear idea of what they want. It can help an adviser to figure out what your goals are, which is one of the first steps in providing advice.

But, there are also some issues that we are starting to see as an industry, that mean this might not work well for you. I am going to cover the main issues that we are finding with people using AI and ChatGPT to place their insurance enquiry.

Looking for life insurance without medical questions? Learn about guaranteed acceptance life insurance and group life insurance options available with little or no medical underwriting.

It’s been a long time since I have done a blog, for many reasons! But, the main reason is something that I never expected to write.

My mum has died.

I’m sure it’s not surprise to most people that know me, that if an insurer uses ‘he’ in their materials, that I start to get my back up. When we were told ‘yeah, but we have a statement that says he means she, so it’s ok’ that was like a red flag to a bull.

This is something that we will keep calling out as it is simply not ok, there are many gender identities and it really isn’t that difficult to use wording that is inclusive to all.

Most of the time life insurance applications are arranged without any form of medical. 

Insurers like to ask people to have a medical when they apply for life insurance, in some circumstances, but it is not their go to approach. They cost money!

Income protection is one of the most valuable purchases a working person can make. You pay a little of your income each month to the insurer, so that if you are ill and can never work again, they will replace your income for you.