Advice for applying for mortgage cover and critical illness cover in the UK?

[daveu]

Hi there,

I am currently looking into mortgage cover and critical illness cover for my wife, baby & myself, and I would appreciate any advice from anyone here who has done this before.

My symptoms currently present as moderate (60%) as per the ME Disability Scale on mesupport.co.uk: https://www.mesupport.co.uk/index.php?page=m-e-disability-scale. I'm currently unemployed and unable to work full-time because of my ME.

Through our mortgage broker we have found three providers that will take our application given my pre-existing condition: Zurich, Legal and General, and Royal London. Of course, there is no guarantee they will actually go ahead and agreed to provide cover just because they will accept the application.

My goal, or hope, is to find a provider that would cover me for critical illness cover if my ME deteriorated from moderate to severe.

I have read this thread: https://forums.phoenixrising.me/index.php?threads/critical-illness-insurance.48719/ which was useful in highlighting that ME/CFS might not be included in the illnesses insured for. I checked and none of the three providers do cover ME/CFS, although Legal and General cover "Encephalitis – resulting in permanent symptoms" i.e. brain information, although I do get neuro inflammation as a symptom with my ME, I'm not sure ME counts as Encephalitis.

Per the thread I mentioned above, I looked into whether potentially claiming in the future under Total And Permanent Disability might be a route I could take. All three providers insure for this, but with different wording (please see attached to this post), and only Legal and General insure for this as standard, the other two providers you have to add it as an extra (for an additional cost presumably).

Any advice or recommendations would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks


Legal and General

Royal London

Zurich

 

[CreativeB]

Hi @daveu. I don't have a definitive answer, but do have a few observations.

State Retirement Age in the UK is 65, so I'd be wary of Zurich's policy.

My understanding was that insurance companies won't cover a pre-existing condition so if they accept your cover keep all evidence that shows they were aware what you are looking for when they accepted the risk.

Hope that helps

 

[daveu]

Hi @daveu. I don't have a definitive answer, but do have a few observations.

State Retirement Age in the UK is 65, so I'd be wary of Zurich's policy.

My understanding was that insurance companies won't cover a pre-existing condition so if they accept your cover keep all evidence that shows they were aware what you are looking for when they accepted the risk.

Hope that helps

Thanks for the reply. That's a good point about the Zurich only covering up to 60.

And you make a good point about pre-existing conditions. I have been very clear with our mortgage broker that I have ME. He says those three providers are willing to receive our application.