Life Insurance:

Life insurance can become a problem for anyone who has undergone a cancer diagnosis. Many find in difficult to get insurance/mortgage protection or to get it at a reasonable rate.

There is no doubt it has a major impact on premiums. Many patients/former patients are afraid to seek insurance for fear of being refused and effectively being blacklisted.

Insurers assure us this is not the case. From a business point of view they want to sell insurance and refusing business makes no money. They evaluate the risk and increase the premium accordingly, usually for a period of several years, with a smaller loading applying to the remaining term of the policy. If they feel they unable to accept the risk, another company may be willing to accept. Being refused by one is, we are assured, not held against you if you approach another.

And if you are unable to get cover, you are no worse off. But you never know until you try……..

During 2000 LSI & BMT Support approached an insurance broker, Flood Maguire & Robertson for guidelines for our members. We approached a broker rather than going directly to an insurance company as we felt that a broker would have access to a range of products, not just those of one company and would know which companies would look more favourably on each diagnosis and treatment. What follows is extracted for the reply received in June 2000. Figures quoted are correct at that time and may change, but give some indication of the process.

'Terms for Life cover, if possible, depend on the stage that the disease has reached and the length of time that has elapsed disease free since successful treatment. A report from each individual's private Medical Attendant will always be required and a medical is not usually needed.'

'More favourable cases can be considered for cover once 2 years have elapsed recurrence free since successful treatment. Terms if possible would be in the form of a small permanent extra premium and a very significant temporary extra premium.

Examples of this would be:

A normal premium for £100,000 cover for 20 years for a 30 year old male is £12.09 per month. If such a life had stage 1 Hodgkin's Disease and was in the third year without recurrence, the premium would increase to £129.09 for the first five years of the policy and would revert to £15.91 per month for the duration of the policy thereafter. The same life could be considered at a premium of £15.91 for the duration of the policy, if said life had been seven years without recurrence.'

'Less favourable cases cannot be considered for cover until at least a five years disease free period has elapsed. Such cases would then be considered on an individual basis'

We would like to thank Flood, Maguire and Robertson Limited for their help in obtaining this information for us.

Flood, Maguire and Robertson Limited are members of the Irish Brokers Association and can be contacted at Dublin 677 8231.

This information was provided in response to a requests for help in this area.