UKC

ok, so im trying to take out life insurance at the moment, and there was the obvious 'do you participate in any dangerous activities i.e climbing, mountaineering etc' question. i answered yes and got sent a seperate questionaire to fill in regarding how often and where i climb etc.
just for my life insurance alone,(not including critical illness etc) my per month payment rose from £8.46 to £60.10!! i knew there would be an increase from the initial quote but thats phenominal!
do you also think this is steep? and do you also declare that you engage in ' dangerous activities' or do you just not bother??

cheers for any info

In reply to vincentvega: Steep? That's damn right horrendous. I would look at getting as many quotes as you can from different companies. I took out mortgage protection with 'Standard life' and it was a few pounds more for me being honest and stating that i climb. On a similar note, I work on construction sites day in, day out, travel alot, climb and white water canoe, my wife is a teacher who likes walking and gardenning, she was the higher risk when it came to insurance. How do they work that one out??

In reply to vincentvega: i don't believe it..

no honestly. I have life insurance, which i think is 26 quid per month.

this is only one pound more than the missus. I too filled out details of mountaineering, climbing etc (grades, locations the works) so i think that's highly suspect. Can you go elsewhere?

In reply to gingerdave13: i most definatley will be going else where! i also told norwich union that!! i will shop around tomorrow!! cheers

In reply to vincentvega:

Try the BMC's specialist broker https://www.thebmc.co.uk/Category.aspx?category=14

In reply to vincentvega:

Presuming you just want this for mortgage cover, and that things haven't changed in the last year you should find that Norwich Union will not charge you anything extra for climbing in the UK.

In reply to vincentvega: Bloody hell Al!
thats stupid,i need to check my insurance,just in case.
you spoke to mike since you been back?

In reply to johnSD:

Just checked the form again to be sure.

It asks if you are involved in any activities such as:

* Diving (other than as a holiday activity), caving or potholing
* Climbing outside of the UK
* Extreme sports (for example, base jumping, bungee jumping, white water rafting)
* Flying (including hang gliding, microlighting, parachuting, etc)
* Motor car or bike racing on a racing circuit

And doesn't mind at all if you only climb in the UK

In reply to vincentvega:

That sounds like a quite steep increase. It does depend what kind of climbing you do though - if you are an inexperienced climber who goes to the Alps etc then they will load you because you are a higher danger risk.

If you lie on the form and they request the death certificate on a claim (they are within rights to do so and they do do it sometimes, particularly if they have any suspicions for whatever reason) and find you died from doing an activity you haven't claimed for on the form that you were doing at time of application, then they probably won't pay. And they're well within their rights to do so - you've lied on the form about the risk level you present to them.

AJM

In reply to kevin k: yeah spoke to him, meetin him tomorrow to exchange discs with the photos on. you free sat? im in wales if your up for something?

In reply to johnSD: yes, it is just for mortgage cover, climbing outside the uk may have bumped it up.
i did tick the 'climbing will be limited to europe' box.

also on the critical illness side of things, there are exemptions that i wouldnt be covered if a climbing/mountaineering incident led to myself being criticaly ill under there standard list of illnesess!

In reply to vincentvega: it sounds like that insurance company do not want to take you on as you climb. In others words they think you are too risky.

Just keep looking as there are lots of other insurance companies, try looking for reccomend by the BMC who specialise in high risk lifestyles or so they would say!

In reply to space monkey: yeah thats my thinking. bleedin pain in the arse filling out all these forms though!!

In reply to vincentvega:

Don't know if it's possible to get the life cover for cheap that covers you in the UK, and then get travel+life insurance to cover foreign trips?

Suppose it would depend how often you climb abroad, but if it was saving you £600 a year in UK life insurance, you could buy expensive travel cover as and when and still be better off?

In reply to vincentvega: No, i'm fitting a kitchen at the mo, but i will know more on friday, next weekend i have a job in dublin, then working the following weekend!!!
What recesion?

In reply to vincentvega: its more cos they some ho know your crap at climbin!!!!! ha ha


dan

In reply to danny 7a+: pmsl

In reply to kevin k: then again why hasnt yours trebelled in price????

In reply to space monkey:

Generally they don't work like that.

Until you get to very very extreme levels of risk (far higher than most climbers will ever present) most companies are perfectly happy to take you on, they just price based on the level of risk they think you present to them.

They're pricing to what they think the level of risk is - discouragatory (is that a word? With the intent to discourage) pricing isn't something most insurance companies go for - after all, they are in the business of risk, without it they wouldn't make any money..........

AJM

In reply to danny 7a+: ha Cock nose

In reply to AJM: I'm not sure what to make of information that I received from one broker, namely:- that your risks are assessed on the information that you present accurately on the form *at the time of taking out* the insurance policy. I asked the question, what happens if you later decide to undertake more hazardous activities with a greater risk? The response was that these risks would still be covered by the initial policy and, yes, at the far lower original premium. I had previously understood that any significant changes in risk-taking had to be notified to the insurer or broker but I was assured that this was not the case.

In reply to Dee:

I'm no expert in the legalities of it (I work at an insurance company, but not in an area which involves having to have any knowledge of the exact terms of the contracts), but I believe this is true. Obviously this is only my belief as to what the situation is - caveat emptor and all that.

Essentially, as I understand it, you have a duty to disclose anything that happens before your policy is put live - any changes between your initial application and the time they have finished underwriting you and you've signed all the final paperwork. Once the policy has gone live, you don't have to inform them of anything - built into their assessment of the risk you pose is the chance that you may pick up a hobby like skydiving once your policy is live.

However, when you show them the death certificate to make a claim and it says "killed by rockfall on Mont Blanc", then given the sums of money involved its probably worth their while checking whether you were doing it before you took the policy out

AJM

In reply to AJM: I took a particular interest in this issue when children arrived on the scene - I didn't think that alpinism was going to be possible or compatible with a young family, so at the time of signing the policy I declared that I wasn't involved in alpinism any more. As my children are growing up, time begins to exist for climbing overseas again... where this would leave an insurance policy, I don't know.

I moved back to UK last year, have a partner and two kids, bought a house and unlike Australia found that the mortgage provider insisted I had life ins. Shopped around and BMC were best and specialise in this field. Crofty