Category: Life Insurance

Making a claim on your insurance policy is a long, laborious process with hidden hurdles that make it incredibly hard to ever secure the pay-out you feel you’re entitled to, right?

Well, as it turns out, the data suggests quite the opposite! Despite the relatively baseless claims that often surround the protection conversation, making a claim is actually much simpler than you may think.

With the vast majority of providers rarely refusing a claim, making a claim is not only a relatively easy process, but also one that rarely ends in frustration.

The first port of call if you’re looking to make a claim is to call your insurer and ask them for a claim form. This could be a paper copy through the post or a digital one via email. This needs to be completed, and it’s always wise to keep a copy for yourself. Before you send your claim form back to your insurer, you should double check that:

• you’re within the time limits for making a claim
• you’re covered for whatever it is you’re claiming for

For General insurance claims, you may also want to consider:

• how much the excess is. It may not be worth making a claim if the amount you’re claiming for is less than this
• If you have any proof that may help your claim such as receipts, images or anything else that may support your claim.

As long as your claim falls within these parameters, there’s very little risk of not getting a pay-out on your policy. For example, one of the industry’s biggest providers, Aviva, had a successful claims rate of 98.1% in 2021 – paying out over £1 billion over the course of the year on various types of policies. That figure equates to roughly £3 million in pay-outs a day from a single provider, showing just how often protection pays off.

While speaking about the number of pay-outs made in 2021, Jacqueline Kerwood, Claims Philosophy Manager at Aviva, said: “Helping more than 53,700 families with pay-outs last year highlights the real financial vulnerability that many households without cover could face if they were unfortunate enough to experience significant illness or the loss of a loved one. This vulnerability will sadly only be exacerbated by today’s cost of living crisis and never has it been as important to have and keep some protection insurance in place”.

New research conducted by Royal London has revealed that smokers can save up to £16,000 on life insurance premiums by quitting. According to the insurer, non-smokers could be entitled to lower rate premiums if they have avoided tobacco, or nicotine replacement products such as e-cigarettes, for at least a year. So, how much of an impact on your life insurance can stopping smoking have. 

According to new research, a smoker aged 50 would pay almost three times the amount that a non-smoker of the same age would pay every month for the same sum assured. Obviously, this is down to the health risks associated with smoking – and the savings made by not smoking can be up to a total of £16,005 over a 25-year term.

Chief underwriter at Royal London, Craig Paterson, spoke on No Smoking Day about the savings that are there to be made by quitting smoking: “there’s a huge potential for savings on premiums, and that’s on top of not buying cigarettes as well as the benefits to your health. While the new year is a popular time
for many to give up smoking, No Smoking Day is a perfect opportunity for those who didn’t quite manage to kick the habit. Committing to making a positive change to your health can also lead to a positive change to your wallet – and realising that may help people stick to their decisions.”

Am I a smoker for insurance purposes?

With a long list of alternative nicotine products available on the market now, it can be hard to tell whether you fall into the ‘smoker’ category or not. Most life insurance providers do class vaping and the use of e-cigarettes the same as smoking. Although Public Health England found vaping to be 95% less harmful than smoking in 2015, there have been more recent studies that suggest there may be some longer-term health issues that the use of e-cigarettes could cause.

From an insurance provider’s perspective, any nicotine products are more often than not considered to be within the same bracket. There are sometimes exceptions, and the use of 0% nicotine e-cigarettes can be viewed differently – but as a general rule most insurance providers will need you to be nicotine free for a year before being classed as a non-smoker.

So, although the alternatives to smoking do not come with as many adverse effects, the inclusion of nicotine is enough to make you fall under the ‘smoker’ bracket in the eyes of an insurer. Therefore, there really isn’t much difference between the two when it comes to protection

Head over to our insurance page to find out more about Life Insurance, Mortgage and Income Protection https://mortgages4u.uk/protection

Each year one million people in the UK sadly find themselves unable to work due to a serious illness or injury (ABI 2017). Income protection insurance is designed to give you some cover if you can’t earn an income for those reasons. If something happened to you would you be able to survive on savings, or on sick pay from work? If not, you’ll need some other way to keep paying the bills and you might want to consider income protection insurance.

Think of it as your own personal furlough – if you are unable to work, having a regular sum coming in from an income protection policy can really soften the blow and relieve the pressure on the day to day bills.

Read more here, or contact us for more information