UKC

Does anyone have any tips for getting affordable life insurance with our 'leisure activities'.. I recently went through a price comparison site and was quoted £7 per month per person for life insurance from royal london, which was great as we've just had a baby and I thought life insurance would be a responsible thing to do for him. Then I got the terms and conditions back from royal London and they had upped the premium by £50 per month (per person) ! Apparently it's because my leisure activities include climbing!!! Totally unaffordable ... Do any climbers or climbing parents have life insurance!?! Should I have just not admitted it on the form!? 

Hi Carla,

Firstly, congratulations!

You must be honest on any insurance application. Failure to disclose something may lead to the insurance not paying out when those who you intend to benefit would need it most. 

Most insurers do not fully understand climbing and mountaineering. They see no difference between clipping some bolts and soloing E11 and will load accordingly.

Summit Financial Services might be an option, they specialise in this kind of business. 

Hope that's helpful!

BB

I reviewed my life insurance when I had my son, I was initially quoted £70 - £80pm through my financial advisor. I ended up getting it down to £40pm through Vitality Life, I think I've climbed outdoors three times since he was born so its probably overkill at the moment. You need to admit you climb, otherwise if your family need to claim because of a climbing related accident they won't receive a payout. Unfortunately its just something you'll either need to suck up and pay or take a gamble on never needing to use.

Summit Financial Services are great, they understand risk in climbing.

Highly recommended.

Another vote for summit financial services, I pay around £30 a month for mortgage cover. Almost all the other brokers I spoke to couldn't even provide a quote for the activities I was interested in.

Thank you everyone that's very helpful! Looks like I'll contact summit financial and see how much they can quote for! 

Thanks that's really helpful ! 

Years ago my brillianr climbing friend was an actuary at Friends Provident. Everytime a quote came in from a rock climber they passed it to Tony for an intelligent assessment. 

Sadly he's retired now. If all life assurance firms had a Tony it would be great. Meantime there's Summit Financial, as others have said  

I would also highly recommend Summit Financial Services, who will ask you sensible questions about your climbing.

Once I had a mortgage I figured I needed critical illness cover.  My financial adviser quoted me £15/month but then when I told them about climbing it suddenly became £50/month AND excluded illness/death from climbing!! Summit FS arranged cover for about £17/month which covered climbing.

We reviewed the policy when we moved (new house, new mortgage) - the premium for OH was increased due to a previous history of depression, but not affected by climbing.

I don't know who it was with but like you my premium went through the roof. After some shopping about and accepting some restrictions it only added about £10 a month extra. 

The restrictions were, single pitch only, must be roped (didn't specify between trad and sport) and must wear a helmet approved for climbing. 

I also found they asked sensible questions. However, I recall premiums went up above E5 and they won't touch soloing. 

Yes I recently inquired about life insurance with Summit and when I informed them I climb (or try to!) at E5, the premium shot up and was totally unaffordable. A shame, it seemed like a great service up till then.

I'm pretty sure mine covers soloing? Its ages ago when I got the policy so cant quite rembember.

Interesting I spoke to them a few weeks ago as when I initially got the policy it covered new routing alpenism at altitude (whitch I guess is getting on as risky as you get). I've given up on that sort of thing and wanted to know if I could reduce my policy but it seemed to make no difference.

Have a look at Beagle Street. They told me that there are no restrictions on activities, but do ask them yourself to clarify. This was just for life insurance, not critical illness or anything else. They also offer a free will writing service. I've had numerous quotes recently, including summit fs, which was on the pricier end. I can't see the benefit personally. Its always worth asking a regular insurer how they view climbing if it isn't specified in their screening process. I don't think aviva were bothered either, and when I asked they said: if we don't ask about it, we don't want to know (i.e it's not a restriction).