AndyBaker

Where does it say he's got cover, I am making the assumption and maybe the OP can confirm that the cover was taken out for a decreasing debt when she was at work and contributing. He said he is "now" the sole earner, she is going to "return" to work. How many more clues do you want.

john banks

So why insure her now when she is not working and not paying the mortgage? I doubt there is some horrendous loss of a surrender/maturation value or that this is an earth shattering deal to hang onto at all cost unless there has been some intercurrent illness.

EddScott

My wife wasn't contributing to the mortgage and she had CI. She didnt have decreasing cover as that wouldn't suit IMO.

Financial advice can be given on a transactional basis. Client needs advice, that advice is paid for. No commission no hidden fee. It's not difficult.

AndyBaker

Because for a start she intends to return to work so may well contribute to the debt and I am assuming that she took the cover out in the first place to provide cover if she had a critical illness in which case her husband may well be able to care for her without worrying about the loss of his income.

AndyBaker

Agree

john banks

The situation of your wife is a bit personal to bring into it EddScott and I do not want to add to your distress in discussing it.

I don't think that a fee based adviser is any less a salesperson than one on commission even if commission bias is removed unless you take a very narrow definition of the word "sell".

AndyBaker

Don't you "sell" health

john banks

It is difficult to call any of socialised medicine a sale, and it removes a lot of the smuttiness associated rightly or wrongly with sales. I wouldn't completely object to a sales based system where I advertised, had contracts with patients who paid me for healthcare and supplied them commercial products, but it would change the relationship with the patient dramatically and does introduce many of the complications that have dogged the financial services industry. The only suspicion my patients have is that I might be pressured to save money for HM Government, whereas the flipside of me wanting to perform unnecessary expensive interventions would be the suspicion in a private system.

cster

Your faith in the NHS is endearing.

EddScott

That's fair enough. However, my situation is a perfect example of why insuring the non breadwinner is a reasonable decision.

It's not impossible to conceive that some advisers really do act in the best interests or the client.

AndyBaker

I was trying to make a point, everybody is selling something

john banks

I am sure they do, as do many politicians and perhaps even some journalists. Removal of perverse incentives to not always act in the interests only of the client is probably good.

Our personal situations can influence us unduly in our recommendations to others, but "n of 1" experiences should not come before quality statistical data though.

If buying critical illness cover I would want to know the probability of a payout and the profit ratio over the long term, or try to get a product with a mutual if possible. The underwriters would not want a long term trend of loss making, but are there rules to stop them deliberately cross subsidising some products to win market share?

Insuring a non breadwinner has examples where it worked, but personally I think it is for most likely to be over insurance. My view is that unless a risk is going to be highly damaging without insurance (and the insurance provides at least some monetary mitigation that makes a material difference) then it probably isn't worth insuring for. So the big ticket things are worth doing, but many of the others I would rather save a war chest for, and I am more insured than most.

AndyBaker

I consider myself a big ticket thing

Turbohot

I don't mind who sells what, as long as what they sell is worth it.

Personally, I'm more positive about my doc saving me from dying than I am of an insurer paying out my funeral costs. Insurer may find some condition to disqualify me e.g. I should have died with my mouth closed, and escape paying out.

Anyway, I still bought the 'life' one. I don't bother with the ' critical illness' one.

cster

I agree with you to a point.
However, I don't think this necessarily applies to state run monopoly service providers.
Self perpetuation is probably more of their raison d'etre IMO. - Perhaps, taking a tautological view, we may agree that they are in fact - selling themselves?

tony de wonderful

Interesting article in the Guardian about the interests of Doctors vis a vis the pharmaceutical industry, or rather the article articulates a demand that such 'interests' should be formally declared for all to see.

Anyway, conceiving of medicine as being a market is to idealise the social relations involved. If we go with say Foucault then medicine can be a form of power/knowledge which shapes the subject/patient before then can 'come to market' and make 'demands' about what 'services' they want in some 'self choosing' way. This doesn't seem very obvious when we see medicine as disinfecting wounds and stitching them up, but especially with something like psychiatry, it gets to define what is good health and what isn't, what needs interventions and what doesn't, it applies labels, demands people to make confessions, produces a medicalised subject conscious of themselves as a psychiatric object through psychiatric discourse.

So I suppose I mean that first and foremost medicine is an institution rather than a market.

tony de wonderful

I need to consider my options if and when I get a mortgage. I don't know much about this stuff to be fair, but I'd want to be able to at least pay my mortgage off if I was seriously ill or made disabled. My work will cover me for a few months of illness.

tarmac terror

iTrader: (2)

To clear up some of the confusion, my wife took out this policy in 2004 when she was single and had her own mortgage. She had life cover which decreased in line with what remained of her mortgage, additionally, she took out CI insurance, to enable her to pay her mortgage if she became ill to the point where she could not earn - she was self employed, so income protection was not available to her.

We sold our houses in 2006 and bought our current home. Our mortgage is jointly held, with joint decreasing term life assurance in place to cover the balance of the mortgage if either of us should die before it is repaid.

In addition to this, my wife would like to keep on her critical illness policy. I just wanted to gauge a feel for whether the premium against the value of the policy was excessive.

cster

How fascinating.

EddScott

I would see if you can get some quotes on the same if not very similar to the existing policy and see what the premiums are.

You really do need to check what you are currently covered for and what any new policy will cover you for - don't just look at the lowest premium. I know at least one insurer will only pay out CI on loss of a limb if its more than 1 - now that is a proper pi55 take IMO.

As DingDongler mentioned older CI policies cover far more than modern policies. When the definitions changed I can't remember.

AndyBaker

Agree absolutely, if the wife is in good health, lower guaranteed premiums may well be available so cost is known for the term of the policy but definitely do not cancel existing cover until replacement is in place. Also Edd you are absolutely right that older policies will cover you for more events than new and a good IFA should be able to show what you may be giving up using a comparison tool.

My 10 year old CI policy covers prostate cancer and heart valve replacement that I don't think are available with some of the newer policies. My opinion without knowing all of the facts is that the current policy held is expensive
But as said before check what you may be giving up.

You are also right Edd to say " don't just buy on price"

Andy

tarmac terror

iTrader: (2)

Edd / Andy & others, thanks for your contribution. Appointment needed with IFA come the new year.

Dingdongler