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Self-Employed: What Income Are We Protecting? Caring – Understanding – Reliable – Advice Get a Quote Self-Employed: What Income Are We Protecting? When you are

When you start looking at protection insurance, there can be quite a lot to think about. Life insurance, critical illness cover and income protection can all provide valuable financial support, but they do different things.

Ideally, you might want to have all three in place. However, the reality is that not everyone has the budget to cover everything they would like to protect.

One of the biggest issues that we see is people trying to figure out which insurance should be a priority.

So, what do you do when you cannot afford all the insurance you need?

The answer is to look at your circumstances, understand where the biggest financial risks are and prioritise the cover that matters most to you. This will not be the same for everyone, as your needs can change depending on whether you are buying a home, starting a family, living alone or supporting someone who relies on you financially.

What Medical Questions Will I Be Asked for Life Insurance? Caring – Understanding – Reliable – Advice Get a Quote What Medical Questions Will I

When you apply for life insurance, you will usually be asked questions about your current health and medical history. Your family medical history is often asked about too!

Many insurers will ask whether you have any outstanding medical appointments, investigations or referrals.

This can be worrying if you are currently waiting to see a specialist or have an appointment coming up.

So, does having an outstanding medical appointment mean your life insurance will be postponed?

Not necessarily.

There is an important difference between a routine medical review and an appointment that is investigating a new or potentially significant health condition.

When you apply for life insurance, critical illness cover or income protection, you may be asked some detailed questions about your health.

That is the case for more insurers in the UK and if you are going for the full cover, that doesn’t come with a list of exclusions.

Sometimes, the insurer may also ask your GP for a medical report.

This can be a fairly routine part of the application process. However, there can be some surprising information contained within your medical records. This blog is not to criticise the work of the NHS, the work that they do is phenomenal, but we are seeing a lot of issues with medical data.

You might even read something and think:

“My GP record says what?”

It is not unusual for medical records to contain information that you were not aware of, information that is out of date, or even information that is simply incorrect.

This can potentially cause problems when applying for protection insurance. I have some examples for you in a bit.

When you apply for life insurance, you will usually be asked questions about your health and medical history.
For many people, these questions are straightforward. However, if you have experienced suicidal thoughts, self-harmed or attempted suicide, applying for life insurance can sometimes feel much more complicated.
There is an important reason for these questions.
The majority of personal life insurance policies in the UK have an initial exclusion for claims relating to suicide or self-harm. This is usually for the first 12 months of the policy.
Once the policy has been in place for 12 months, claims relating to suicide will generally be covered, subject to the specific terms and conditions of the policy.
This is one of the reasons why insurers can take a closer look at an application where there has been a history of suicidal thoughts, self-harm or a suicide attempt.

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.