UKC

Has anyone else had any problems when getting life insurance to cover their mortgage? We were originally quoted 14 quid per month, which seemed reasonable. However, after filling out a variety of forms and admitting to climbing, the cost had soared to £140 per month!! Several rants down the phone later, the insurance company admitted that it was because we climb (I'm not that adventurous - a few sunny routes in the Lakes and the odd cake later) and we have done a bit of via ferrata and intend to do so again. Apparently, it is because of the "height" of the mountains in Europe that they have loaded up the premiums, despite the fact that we have BMC insurance for such occasions.
Any advice anyone or is this sort of prejudice normal?

In reply to Christine:

Shop around. I found that when I explained in detail what I did my premium wasn't loaded. I had a policy with Norwich Union for years at normal rates.

Also think seriously about whether you really need life insurance? Who is going to benefit from it? If you've got dependants, then yes it's important. But if you are both wage earners, consider the options. Would the surviver be able to cover the mortgage repayments themselves? In fact would they want to stay in the property at all on their own? Or would they sell and move on/downsize?

We went through this exercise when the kids left home and decided that the survivor was most unlikely to want to go on living in the house and would sell and move on if one of us died, hence paying huge mortgage life insurance premiums seemed too expensive, and we opted not to have mortgage protection.

In reply to Christine:

this might be worth a scan

http://www.thebmc.co.uk/Feature.aspx?id=1526

In reply to Christine:

It was always the "climbing with ropes" question that did for me: I had to resist the temptation to put "no, I leave them behind"

But my insurers have changed the question to "climbing that would normally require ropes"

Y.

In reply to Christine: I used to work for legal & general and anyone who out door trad led over S4b would get their premium loaded by the calculation 0.17 pence per thousand I.E if you wanted 100k you would have to pay an extra £17 on top of normal premium.

I know it could go up further depending on grades and as for mountaineering in the EU of over 2000m well thats was usually even more.

The only real way around it is just to lie is suppose but then thye might be able to not pay out on the grounds of non-disclosure.

Hope this helps

In reply to Christine: I started a thread that addressed some of these issues last year.

http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=241262&v=1#x3545490

Someone there mentions an insurance broker called Pinnacle that specialises in life insurance for climbers, but I can't find their details now. I did speak to them at the time and they were very helpful, but when I checked my existing policies I found I was OK, so didn't need to use them in the end.

In reply to Christine: summit financial services through the bmc reduced mine by a fair amount, it was the only one that i found that did, and we did some hunting

In reply to Christine:

Have you had a look at the policy details for the BMC insurance though? I've had a flick through, and the amount paid on death is £5000 (based on a Rock climbing policy I took out recently). Thats in all likelyhood not enough to cover a mortgage should you die. The BMC insurance is basically travel and medical insurance, its not really life insurance.

Insurance companies load premiums for rock climbers. Much as we would wish to deny it, you are more likely to make a claim if you climb than if you don't, so the price goes up - thats the way it works. They have the statistics to back it up, I'm afraid the loading isn't done simply to penalise, it is an attempt to mitigate the increased chance they have of having to pay out. Its not really prejudice, its simply the theory behind how life insurance pricing works - you try and split people into small groups of similar risk and price the premiums appropriately. If you had one blanket premium rate regardless of hobbies etc then you would end up having everyone else pay more to subsidise the people who engage in more risky sports or who are generally more unhealthy (or, by logical extension, if you only charged a single rate the young would subsidise the old).

I'm impressed that you had to rant down the phone. We (I work for a UK insurance company in life insurance pricing) would generally state why the premium had increased on the terms and conditions, and I had previously imagined everyone else does as well.

Theres a variety of things that can make it better. Being a BMC member is a good sign, as is having climbed a certain number of years, these can reduce or eliminate the premium loading. Climbing outside the UK probably generally increases the premium (an interesting thing for those who only ever go bolt clipping, which is probably far safer than scottish winter for example which would obviously fall into the UK geographical banding), but then if you can try and speak to whoever is actually underwriting your case and explain to them what sort of thing you are doing you might be able to get a better deal. However, I imagine that Via Ferratae will probably still be viewed as increased risk since they get you up into proper mountains with associated rockfall, weather etc risks.

AJM

In reply to gear boy: That's it, it wasn't called Pinnacle, but Summit Financial Services. Website here:
http://www.summit-fs.co.uk/

Very helpful. Good luck