Life Insurance Search

After being moved to do so by the EU’s Gender Directive, the Association of British Insurers (ABI) has published information that enables insurance companies to continue to use gender as a component in the pricing of policies. This will include policies right across the spectrum of life insurance, such as those for critical illness cover, level term life insurance and decreasing term life insurance.

Implementation of the EU Gender Directive into UK law means that insurers can now only use gender as a discriminatory factor for the pricing of policies if they can publish supporting data.

So that is exactly what the ABI has done, publishing data that shows significant differences between the claiming patterns of men and women for all kinds of life insurance policies, including critical illness cover. They also published data detailing gender differences in claiming patterns on other kinds of policy, such as for car insurance and medical insurance.

A spokesperson for the ABI commented, “The insurance industry is against unfair discrimination of any kind and does not practice it. But it is legitimate for companies to set prices, levels of cover and benefits according to a number of factors which together determine the relative risk that any given customer poses.

“The gender directive and the UK’s transposition of it recognised this and charged the insurance industry with compiling and publishing data to show the relevance of gender in making underwriting decisions. This has now been done. As a result, customers will continue to be able to benefit from fair pricing and a range of products which suit their needs at affordable prices.”

Generally speaking, in the UK at the moment, women will pay less for life insurance than men. With critical illness cover, however, the gender gap is less clear-cut, as a woman is only likely to pay significantly less than a man if she excludes breast cancer cover from her policy.

On 14 June staff from China Life Insurance Company Limited took a computer-based test to ascertain levels of staff skills and qualification within the company.

In all, a staggering 32,582 staff from 50 cities across 31 provinces took the exam, surely one of the largest such test that has ever taken place within the insurance industry.

China Life Insurance was founded in 2003 as part of the new company laws of an emerging free market China. It now has an astonishing 93 million policies, including critical illness cover, decreasing term life insurance and level term life insurance, dwarfing the numbers held by any UK insurer.

Kevin Ma, Chief Executive of ATA, China’s leading computer-based skills tester seemed unfazed by the recent mammoth test of China Life Insurance staff. He commented, “We are pleased with this opportunity to use our leading technology for delivering computer based tests to help China Life Insurance evaluate its internal staff, and we look forward to a long and successful cooperation.”

“The use of computer-based testing technology to assess internal human resources capabilities is at the very early stages of development. We look forward to more customers with mission critical operating systems to qualify staff using ATA's leading testing technologies and nationwide test centre network.”

Life insurance companies are becoming more vigilant in investigating whether policyholders who claim to be non-smokers are telling the truth. This comes in the face of evidence that some smokers are prepared to lie about their habit in order to receive cheaper policies, particularly with critical illness cover, where policies for non-smokers can be nearly half the cost.

For example, a 40-year-old male smoker will have to pay around £95 a month for critical illness cover, while his non-smoking counterpart will only have to fork out around £50 a month for the same policy.

Younger smokers are at a disadvantage too. This is demonstrated by the fact that a 25-year-old woman will have to pay around £8 a month for life insurance if she doesn’t smoke, while if she is a smoker the price increases to nearer £12.

A spokesperson from a UK online insurer commented, "Smokers who declare they have given up but continue to smoke, no matter how infrequently, will be paying for nothing should they die from a smoking related condition.

"The policy simply won’t pay out and their beneficiaries will be the losers.

"Smokers will pay twice the price for critical illness cover than a non-smoker – it’s a no win situation for the smoker, their nicotine addiction is tightening both their heart and purse strings"

Smokers can get help quitting at www.quit.org.uk.

A 54-year-old grandmother from Newcastle who is suffering from ovarian cancer has received the surprise news that she will receive £71,000 in critical illness cover from her life insurance company. This development ends a difficult three-year fight to try and get her insurers to pay-up.

She was told she would receive the money when her insurers called her to tell her that they would pay out the critical illness cover money.

The former supermarket worker commented, “It was so out of the blue. I hadn’t heard anything these last few weeks and then to hear about this on the phone was unreal.

“I thought it must have been some kind of joke. I never thought they would pay out. I’d pretty much given up.

“It’s been a long struggle, but thank God it’s all come to an end.”

She also spoke of how the insurance payout would make a real difference to her family, “I’m just so pleased the money’s come through. I was so worried the family might not have been able to cope after I’m gone but now I can pay off the mortgage.”

Throughout her fight, the grandmother of four was supported by her local MP Denis Murphy. He commented, “This is a great result. We have been campaigning very hard on this.

“I’ve been told the meeting is unnecessary because they have settled the claim in full. I’m delighted.” 

But, for now, she will put the critical illness cover win at the back of her mind, saying, “I can’t really enjoy the money because I’m still having chemotherapy. But it’s a fantastic feeling to know I’ll have the security I was always entitled to.”

A Scottish father of two has finally won the right to receive the critical illness cover payout he deserves.

Despite suffering from a tumour on the stem of his brain, the 30-year-old was initially told by his life insurance provider that he would not receive any money from his critical illness cover policy because of complications relating to diagnosis.

Yet a definitive diagnosis was always going to prove impossible in the case of the spray paint shop foreman because the site of his tumour made biopsy unviable.

His wife explains, “The doctors initially thought it was an inner ear infection but a CT scan confirmed the worst. He had a growth on the stem of his brain which could not be operated on because it was too dangerous.”  

“To this day the surgeons don't know what the growth is because they can't take a biopsy because of its location.”  

She also explained the difficulties the family have faced since the dad’s illness and his subsequent surgery, seizures and emotional and physical difficulties, “It was horrific. When he came back from theatre he had a drain and staples in his scalp.”  

Adding, “There's a complete change in his personality. He used to be laid-back now he's angry and anxious.   

“This is particularly hard for the children as their dad is just not the same any more and they can't understand that. He has no short-term memory, gets tired all the time, can't sleep or see properly.”   

It was only after the man’s family decided to contact the consumer problems troubleshooter from the Sunday Mail that his insurers agreed to pay out.  

The life insurance company explained the reasons for their about-turn in deciding to accept the dad’s illness fell within the terms of their critical illness cover, "We declined the initial claim as it didn't come under the terms of his policy. But a later CT scan showed a small area of bleeding in his brain.  

“A review of the medical evidence was undertaken. As a result we are satisfied we can regard the illness as a stroke within the terms of the policy.”