This is just a quick update to say that Clerical Medical has confirmed that it will pay out my critical illness cover attached to my mortgage - even though through ignorance I didn’t make a claim within the time scales stated in their small print. So , it’s worth purusing this sort of claim even when you are way outside the supposed deadlines for making a claim. My claim was a year outside their deadlines.
I cannot believe I have just read your post. I was diagnosis August 2006 and finished my last Heceptin on 3/1/08. I was having a good clear out last weekend, a kind of lets get on with life. I decided to sort out all our paperwork and came across one of our endowment policies that cover our mortage. As I was reading it I realsied that we had critical illness cover but there was a time frame of 3 months for claiming, We took the policy out 13 years ago and I really had no idea that we were covered. I contacted the company on Monday and they have sent me the forms and said that their claims department will look at it. What do you think are the chances are that our claim will be met. We had to use all our savings while I was off sick, so this would be so amazing. I could really kick myself for not checking the policies but I really had no idea.
I hope i can be of help to both of you.
I feel i will have to go into a lot of detail to explain why you should both be ok.
I met with a friend who had, had her mortgage paid off so got hubby to check for me i was prob 6mnths since DX. He was told our cover was only paid upon death. Obviously i was gutted and thought typical.
We decided a year from there to pay up our mortgage from some savings as we only had a few years to pay. As we had a insurance which we had paid on the mortgage i went to Abbey to discuss it they told me it was a critical illness and death insurance. I said no we had enquired as i had been Dx with BC a year before and told it was only payable on death.
We got a pay out and mortgage paid off, only a samll amount. However i know of friends who have had £40,000 plus mortgages paid off.
Pursue it.
I bought a season ticket for football with my pay out. something i love. Definately think we deserve somethingn nice when we have a DX of cancer.
Me and my partner took out life insurance on each other but they both state that they are payable only on death, I have spoken to Pearl and they have confirmed this so I am a little surprised at your comments, I have read it right that yours was payable on death (what a lovely conversation for a saturday night), if so maybe I should chase it up a bit more - my policy is finished in 2013 and no payment then would this make a difference? Confused
If your policy is only payable on death the insurance company will NOT pay out. If your policy includes critical illness it should pay out on the diagnosis of invasive breast cancer. I don’t think they will pay out on DCIS.
My policy paid my mortgage in full (small print just stated ‘cancer diagnosis’ without further explanation required). I think I just had to send forms to my onc for confirmation of my diagnosis. On the contrary to this relatively painless procedure, when I tried to claim against my Life Assurance policy, they pulled my medical records to bits, accused me of lying (more or less) promptly repaid my contributions and sent me packing. I haven’t had the energy to really fight them, though I know I should as 100K would be really, really helpful. My policy should have been payable upon death or terminal diagnosis (which I have). Perhaps it would be worth your while seeing a financial adviser - these policies have been widely criticised in the media recently.
If they are going to send you the forms and their claims department will look at it, then I think they will pay you out. If this was not their intention, then they would have referred you straight to the small print and said sorry, but you are outside the claim period and that would be that.
Just to let you know I have received a letter from the endowment people to say that they are contacting my oncologist for info, so maybe they are going to process the claim 14 months outside the claim time frame. Will keep you informed.
Wishing you the best of luck with it. It sounds like things are moving in the right direction as if it was a definite no then what would be the point of the endowment people contacting your oncologist.
I had critical illness cover as part of my endowment on my house and really I can’t believe my luck that I had it because I hated the endowment and wished I’d never got one and now it has come up trumps for me and made life a little easier during this awful time.
Just to let you know we got a letter on Friday and they are going to pay out. They have been amazing, really quick, just wrote to my GP. So it was worth contacting them after 17 months and with a 3 month time frame they still agreed.
I had a life insurance policy with free critical illness cover taken out about 7 years ago with Norwich Union. We were advised when we moved about 18 months ago to keep this policy going as we werent paying for the critical illness part and thank god we took Norwich Unions advice. They paid out within 6 weeks of the claim and also paid the interest on the sum payable and refunded 2 months premiums too.
My OH made it his mission to push the claim as I was recovering from WLE and SNB. He basically made sure the doctors/specialists filled out the forms and returned them quickly (be nice but stress to them that you need this money) Our Doctors and nurses were excellent and couldnt do enough for us. Once we knew the forms had been returned basically Phil rang Norwich Union every other day to find out where the claim was up to. Also dont stop paying the premiums as this may cancel the policy.
One thing is most critical illness/life insurances have a clause to let them know as soon as possible (see the other ladies 3 month rule above) and ours didnt pay out for DCIS/LCIS. Unfair I know as often the treatment is just as damaging and long.
Hope this is of some use to you. Good luck. Shonagh xx