Mortgage Protection insurance "Hyper Tropic Cardiomyopathy"

Maxpower2018

Hi All

Asking for some help advice with an issue I am facing .
Closing on family home everything done and sent in quote for Mortgage protection cover.
The insurer asked for a PMA as I have Hyper Tropic Cardiomyopathy diagnosed over 10 years ago. I have no symptoms and live healthy active life. I kinda expected they would load my cover a little and that would be that. The insurer just rejected it out right. The insurer never asked for a health report or for any information on the HCM just your rejected and refused to comment or advise why they cited underwriting decision.

Is this legal surely people who have recovered from a condition are entitled to a quote. It feels like discrimination to be told sorry now you loose the chance to own a home as we don't want to insure you. Can anyone help here ? Anyone have a similar experience and what was the result?

I need some help here guys

Stanford

Unfortunately the insurer is entitled to decline to quote and is not obliged to give a reason, I suggest you put a call in to the Ombudsman for advice.

Maxpower2018

Hi Stanford

I will reach out to Ombudsman not sure they will help but I have to try everything.
Thanks for advice looking for anyone who may have ahd similar circumstance to see what path they took to get cover

Rackstar

Do you want cover because you want it or need for the bank?

The bank can allow you to take out a mortgage without cover.

somesoldiers

Maxpower2018 wrote: »

Hi Stanford

I will reach out to Ombudsman not sure they will help but I have to try everything.
Thanks for advice looking for anyone who may have ahd similar circumstance to see what path they took to get cover

I had a heart attack when I was 30 so have never been able to get insurance cover
Mortgagor can agree to waive your cover if your partner has, or if you cannot get “reasonalby priced cover”. they will need to see Refusal letters so get these. I know that EBS waives my first one and UB my second.
Check with someone who specializes in special circumstance cover, there are an English last resort insurer that may take on this work at a premium . I can Pm you a broker I used, he couldn’t help me in the end but tried everything

Maxpower2018

I need the cover for my mortgage with PTSB ,
My means would allow me get mortgage with any bank

Somesoliders Many thanks for your response this is good feel better to know there is an alternative.
Can you PM me the details

Appreciate all the reply's and help here folks

somesoldiers

Maxpower2018 wrote: »

I need the cover for my mortgage with PTSB ,
My means would allow me get mortgage with any bank

Somesoliders Many thanks for your response this is good feel better to know there is an alternative.
Can you PM me the details

Appreciate all the reply's and help here folks

Done, best of luck with it

TomOnBoard

AFAIK, a person never 'recovers' from HCM. It is mostly considered to be genetic. However, most ppl who have been diagnosed with it live normal lives with it, and many others dont even know they have it. The fact that you know you have it suggests that it was diagnosed at some point, following definitive testing such as cardiac MRI, which would only have been done either if symptoms were being experienced, or someone else related to you was diagnosed with same.

So, its on your medical record which clearly concerns the insurance company, which is probably within their rights to decide whether to provide cover or not. Thats awful for you, and Im not sure where you can go, as now you would (at least theoretically) have to tell any other prospective insurer that you have been refused.

Have a look at this and you may get some pointers:

https://www.the-insurance-surgery.co.uk/medical-conditions-life-insurance/hypertrophic-cardiomyopathy-life-insurance/

Maxpower2018

Tom on board

In reply there are many cases of HCM where the treatments have show considerable success in preventing complications with patients leading full lives. Also there have been patients screened on follow up consultations where the left ventricle has reduced so I disagree with your initial statement.

My questions here are towards solution, and the underwriters in my case never contacted my cardio specialist. They asked for a PMA from my GP who I never see regrading my condition as its symptom less

This said I am grateful for your reply and thank you for the link

phormium

Ask the bank for a waiver, give them the refusal letter and they should be able to sort that out. Then you can get on with the house purchase at least and you can pursue the life cover issue in your own time.

Not being able to get life cover does not stop you being a homeowner, that eventuality was covered in the consumer credit act that obliged banks to ensure customers had life cover for a mortgage.

Plus being entitled to a quote is kind of neither here nor there, of course they could come back with a quote so astronomical that nobody would pay it.

TomOnBoard

Maxpower2018 wrote: »

In reply there are many cases of HCM where the treatments have show considerable success in preventing complications with patients leading full lives. Also there have been patients screened on follow up consultations where the left ventricle has reduced so I disagree with your initial statement.

My questions here are towards solution, and the underwriters in my case never contacted my cardio specialist. They asked for a PMA from my GP who I never see regrading my condition as its symptom less.

The point I was trying to make is that, once HCM appeared on a record to which the insurance company had access, it simply 'flicked a switch' in the process and they did no further work to try and understand the condition and/or its nature in your particular case. The problem now is that, even if you are not symptomatic, this insurer's assessment protocol has rejected you, based on the GP's records. I suspect they didn't have much of an interest in pursuing it further by speaking to your cardiologist, as to do so, they would need to be creating an actuarial profile for your individual case.

Some companies will provide cover for ppl who have a pre-existing condition, but may charge a higher premium. Alternatively, I suppose a policy could be offered that provides protection cover, but would exclude any claim that might result from the HCM condition. That would require a more personal interaction with the insurance company which is what the UK link I gave you would facilitate in the case of a person living there. I see there's a crowd in Tullamore (http://mcgowaninsurance.ie/) that might be worth speaking with to see if they can offer anything. Indeed any local broker would probably be more helpful with advice than you'll get from an individual company/underwriter.

Here's an article from Lion.ie (I believe that Lion are the same ppl as McGowans) dealing specifically with HCM:

https://lion.ie/life-insurance-medical-issues/cardiomyopathy-life-insurance/

Henry Ford III

Stanford wrote: »

Unfortunately the insurer is entitled to decline to quote and is not obliged to give a reason, I suggest you put a call in to the Ombudsman for advice.

The Ombudsman has no remit concerning underwriting decisions.

Drake66

You can send a letter to the insurer via your broker requesting an appeal of the underwriting decision and request that they seek a specialist report.

Henry Ford III

Drake66 wrote: »

You can send a letter to the insurer via your broker requesting an appeal of the underwriting decision and request that they seek a specialist report.

No. Insurer won't discuss declinature with a broker.

Contact has to be between the G.P. and the Insurers C.M.O.

mirrorwall14

Are you a single applicant? Who is the primary earner? Do you have children?

My husband is uninsurable and we had serious problems with mortgage. I understand their logic although it was infuriating at the time (almost two years ago). From their perspective if anything happened to him they would be trying to evict a single mum who had lost her husband, who has a good job from a fairly normal home. It would be the worst optics for them ever.

In the end we lost our deposit exemption and the mortgage was capped at a multiple of 4.5 my income alone. His income was discounted entirely (which was painful because he earns twice my salary). We will not be able to move banks until the mortgage falls below 3.5 times my salary as no one else will look at us. We had to write a personal letter explaining how I planned to pay if anything happened to him

On the plus side, we had to cut our cloth and buy accordingly. We compromised on our own driveway and the fourth bedroom but got everything else and a place where the attic is convertible for the 4th bedroom if we want to later. There's a good possibility I would manage to pay it anyways if anything was to happen (God forbid!!) and we are overpaying by 30% because we can afford it now. If we continue at this rate it will be paid off over 10 years early

The best of luck with it, it was a hugely stressful time. What we did find out was that they would have given him the mortgage without protection if he wasn't married/had a child because in that event they'd just repossess

Maxpower2018

Thanks for all advice

Just to update Lion got me a good price in the end. It took a bit of work but was worth it to have cover.
I would recommend dealing with them as every other broker and insurance company did not seem interested.

TomOnBoard

Maxpower2018 wrote: »

Thanks for all advice

Just to update Lion got me a good price in the end. It took a bit of work but was worth it to have cover.
I would recommend dealing with them as every other broker and insurance company did not seem interested.

Well done! Great result.I'm sure you must be very relieved.

somesoldiers

Maxpower2018 wrote: »

Thanks for all advice

Just to update Lion got me a good price in the end. It took a bit of work but was worth it to have cover.
I would recommend dealing with them as every other broker and insurance company did not seem interested.

Well done, I dealt with lion myself and while I was not successful I would recommend them to anyone in similar circumstances

Policy Review

Maxpower2018 wrote: »

Thanks for all advice

Just to update Lion got me a good price in the end. It took a bit of work but was worth it to have cover.
I would recommend dealing with them as every other broker and insurance company did not seem interested.

Congrats on the good result in the end, when it comes to things like insurance and banking i recommend you eliminate as many negative outcomes as possible. For instance when applying for mortgage protection with underlying medical issues provide additional medical info needed to back up the fact the medical issue is not relevant.

Any underwriter will look at the claim you sent in and if its too much work they will reject it. Mortgages are on the up right now so they usually are on a constant backlog atm.


Anyway best of luck with the mortgage.