UKC

Im just going through the process of buying my first house and was wondering if i should declare my climbing in my insurances.

what experience do people have of this?

Will it put the payments up and do the insurance people have a clue?

In reply to simon andrews: Probably - if you claim and you're climbing then theoretically they could refuse to pay out - and I've never found it made much difference to the premiums anyway.

In reply to simon andrews: do a search on here, this has been discussed a number of times in the past year

In reply to simon andrews:

I did and it did affect the premiums, doubled it in fact from 13 to 25 quid with HSBC. However they did give the option of not including climbing so would not pay out for this if this was the cause of an accident.

In reply to simon andrews:

Yes. If you don't then they have a perfect reason not to pay out. Shop around a bit and you'll find a policy with no penalties for climbing.

In reply to simon andrews:

Summit Insurance brokers specialise in policies for climbers etc via the BMC. THey take your exact details and then discuss with underwriters. But yes, it's likely to affect premiums depending on what level and where you climb.

Otherwise check your policy wordings very carefully for exclusions for dangerous sports - normally if you declared truthfully that you didn't do anything when you made the application, then it may not matter if you subsequently took up climbing, as was the case with my endowment - but I phoned them to double check anyway. Other policies exclude things altogether.

Some companies hate climbing and motorcycling and the like, others don't mind. I suggest you try a specialist broker like summit or others that advertise in the magazines.

In reply to littlecubatwork:
You'd think summit would be the obvious choice, wouldn't you? I did. Our mortgage advisor sorted us with a policy that just excluded climbing so we went to summit 2 months before signing contracts etc and are still waiting to get something sorted through them (2 months in the house now, ffs), at present we are paying too much and not covered for one of the most hazardous things we do, total bollocks! Summit got back last week with the obilgatory "we are still sorting it with the underwriters" but did hint that they may have to get climbing excluded as well!!!!! If I was to do it again I would just not tell them seeing as it gets excluded anyway, its cheaper. It winds me up that they don't even ask wether you drive a car as you are way more likely to die that way, wankers!!!!

In reply to Duncan Disorderly @ Work:
My endowment insurance policy is through Standard Life, and there was no extra premium for climbing. Of course this was taken out several years ago so new policies may be different.

In reply to Simon Caldwell:
I will have to checck them out. I did wonder wether the grade you climb matters to insurers (then again what would the stupid bastards know about Uk grades or any grades for that matter). Should I have put I only lead Mods?

In reply to simon andrews:

Why are you getting life insurance and Income pro?

I bought my house two years ago and for the first year had only Buildings insurance and the second year have buildings and contents. This has meant that I was able to make bigger mortgage repayments which has saved me money.

If you're in a stable job with a low likelihood of being made redundant then it might be worth opting out of income pro (i'm a civil servant so we're practically never sacked!)

Also, if you have no dependants then you could probably do without life insurance.

It might be that you do really need these things, but it seemed to my when I was getting my mortgage that the Financial Advisor was very keen on getting me signed up to these so he could get his commission.

In reply to Duncan Disorderly @ Work:

My first mortgage had a form which required grades to be specified (with VS or greater being the highest bracket) and a box to tick if you were climbing multi-pitch.

My recent mortgage with HSBC last year asked for the location UK/Europe/other and distinguished between sport and trad climbing iirc, which seemed a lot more sensible.