Organ Donation Week 2021

Organ Donation Week 2021

September marks organ donation week. Many people within the UK and worldwide rely on the kind donation of an organ, and many people are also kind enough to donate to those in need.

Some organs can only be donated once a person has passed, and one person alone can save up to nine lives if their organs are donated, with 6112 people in the UK currently waiting for a transplant (Statistics about organ donation, 2021), the more people that know about the possibilities the better. In England it is now law that all people agree to donate their organs once they die, unless they opt out or are in an excluded group. In the UK, it is illegal to buy or sell organs, and yours will only be given whilst you’re alive if you have volunteered.

The donation of organs usually happens after a person has died, but there are some organs that can be donated by a living donor, such as the kidney and part of the liver.

Access to Insurance

If you have done the incredible and donated an organ, you may be wondering if that will have any affect on your access to protection insurance. Thankfully, if you’re healthy and there have been no complications then you should be able to access life insurance with standard premiums (no price increase), this also goes for critical illness cover and income protection. 

If there were any lasting complications, the insurer will have a few questions for you. They will want to know things such as when was the transplant? Have you now fully recovered from the surgery? What were the lasting complications and have you received any treatment to resolve them? The insurer would then look at your individual circumstances in order to make a decision. 

As a person who has received an organ, the terms offered to you will again be dependent on your own individual circumstances. If you have received a kidney, the insurer will want to know what caused the need for the transplant, when the transplant happened, if the organ was from a living donor or not (you might hear the term cadaver), and if there have been any signs of rejection. The insurer will also want to know if your kidney functions are now within the normal ranges, it can be quite handy to have your latest GFR and creatinine levels to hand, before we start researching options for you. 

The insurer would also ask for a report from your GP, so that they can have all of the details they need to make a decision on your application (this is common for many different conditions, so isn’t something which should cause you any concern). The good thing is that there can then never be a question about your forgetting to mention something about the transplant, as your GP will have put it all in writing to them.

It is likely that the insurer will increase the premium that you pay due to you having had a transplant, or you may have to apply with a specialist insurer depending upon how recent the transplant was or how your recovery is going. I know that specialist may sound like it will be expensive, sometimes it can be, but that isn’t always the case. It’s always worth having our advisers do the research and let you know what the price will be, rather than not giving it a go.

It may come as a surprise to you that if you have received a kidney transplant from a living relative, you are more likely to receive better terms for life insurance. 

There are times that some insurers will decline your application for life insurance. It is quite an extreme example, but if you have an organ transplant two days ago, you are not going to receive an offer of insurance from most insurers. You might have tried a few insurers and they have declined your application, and I would ask that you please not give up. Being declined insurance is a horrible feeling and sometimes it is an awful situation that you have simply chosen the wrong insurer for your circumstances. By using an insurance adviser we can step in to research more of the market for you, and specialist options that you can’t typically find through your own searches, to find the cover that you need.

Unfortunately, critical illness cover isn’t available for people who have received a kidney transplant on the standard market, but there are specialist policies that can be accessed. When considering these, it’s important to know that there can be exclusions relating to your kidney, and it’s important to speak with an adviser who can highlight the pros and cons of these policies. 

Similar to critical illness, full income protection isn’t typically available but there are specialist policies that may be accessible through an adviser, and you might have income protection available to you through your employer. 

Case studies

To show how accessible it can be, below are some case studies of clients we have helped source cover for in the past few years:

• A woman in her early 40s came to us needing some insurance in place, for the financial security of her partner if she was to pass away. She had donated her kidney, one year before speaking with us. As an organ donor, insurers are mainly focused upon how well you have recovered from the surgery. We arranged three different types of protection insurance, including £120,000 business life insurance for £15 per month, £300,000 relevant life insurance for £32 per month and group income protection covering 80% of the salary for herself and all other directors of the company for £66 per month, all with standard rates (no increased premium).
• A man in his 50s came to us and we determined that he needed to have some income protection cover in place. He had been living with a medical condition since his teenage years, which had led to him receiving a kidney donation many years before chatting to us. Unfortunately his initial transplant had resulted in a rejection and he had needed to be on dialysis until he received a second kidney transplant. We were able to arrange for him to have an accident and sickness policy that can provide £1,000 of monthly income replacement for up to 12 months, if he is ill and unable to work, or made involuntarily redundant. The policy will pay this out for every successful claim, the policy doesn’t stop after a claim is paid. This policy does come with exclusions for claims relating to his kidneys, which is quite a big exclusion, but he felt that for £20 per month having this policy that could pay out if he has a heart attack, stroke, broken leg or is diagnosed with cancer, and cannot work.
  

   

• We had another man in his late 30s that we supported that needed life insurance to cover his mortgage liability. He had received a kidney transplant a couple of years before we provided him with advice. The kidney he received was from a close living relative and his body was showing no signs of rejection, with his medication working well. We were able to arrange a life insurance policy for a premium of under £22 a month that covered his £165,000 mortgage. This means that he now has the peace of mind of knowing that if something happens to him, that his loved ones can repay the mortgage and not struggle financially to keep the home.

If you have received part of a liver, it can be quite difficult to source protection insurances on the standard market, though there are a few insurers who can consider your application. The insurer will want to know if you received the liver from a living donor, your age when you received the liver and whether or not there had been any complications.

Finding life insurance for a person who has received a heart transplant can also be very difficult. Recent research that we have completed has shown that many insurers are unable to offer life insurance, but that doesn’t mean that everywhere says no. We spoke to someone recently and were able to find them a number of options, some were at an increased premium and limited policy terms of 10 years, and others had exclusions for heart related claims. Ultimately it is down to every individual as to how they feel about price increases or exclusions on these policies, the policies that offer exclusions should certainly be ones that you have a good long think over.

Going through the processes of an organ donation, or receipt of an organ can be a worrying time, but hopefully after reading this blog you’re able to put your mind at ease knowing that there are usually options available when it comes to life insurance, and protecting your income and family.

Resources

NHS Organ Donation. 2021. Statistics about organ donation. [online] Available at: <https://www.organdonation.nhs.uk/helping-you-to-decide/about-organ-donation/statistics-about-organ-donation/> [Accessed 4 October 2021].