Advice Please: Mortgage Protection refused with suspected endometriosis

JPF82

Hi All,

My wife and I have everything sorted for our mortgage with Bank of Ireland apart from Mortgage Protection cover.

My wife had an emergency C-section followed shortly after by an appendix operation last year and has had some slight pain in the following months. All this was disclosed when seeking mortgage protection insurance. We have a letter from the hospital stating that there is a possibility that she has endometriosis and that she has been referred back to the Coombe for further investigation.

The doctors letter states my wife is in good health other than the suspected endometriosis but this isn't sufficient for the insurer. She has had a clear CT scan and her blood tests are also clear, but until she has been fully diagnosed, Aviva and Bank of Ireland Insurance will not give cover.

The Bank won't assess me on my own as I don't earn enough as a teacher. The waiting list in the Coombe to see the Gynacologist is huge so there is little chance of getting any complete diagnosis anytime soon.

Can anyone advise of any insurance companies that are a little more flexible in a scenario such as ours?

Thanks in advance, and sorry for the long post.

Liam D Ferguson

Life insurance companies hate taking on a customer who is awaiting tests or a diagnosis of any sort. It's very common that they will insist on waiting for the results of the tests to come back and for a definitive diagnosis before they will offer cover.

That said, endometriosis in isolation should not affect your wife's terms for life insurance cover. It can sometimes affect illness cover in severe cases, but not life cover. So even if the diagnosis is confirmed, she should still be able to get life cover without difficulty, assuming that there's definitely nothing else.

I think this would be one for your broker to talk directly to the underwriters of a few insurance companies to make a case, before submitting an application. A little bit of negotiating might work, to get them to move past their standard line of "if there's a test outstanding, we wait..."

JPF82

Liam D Ferguson wrote: »

Life insurance companies hate taking on a customer who is awaiting tests or a diagnosis of any sort. It's very common that they will insist on waiting for the results of the tests to come back and for a definitive diagnosis before they will offer cover.

That said, endometriosis in isolation should not affect your wife's terms for life insurance cover. It can sometimes affect illness cover in severe cases, but not life cover. So even if the diagnosis is confirmed, she should still be able to get life cover without difficulty, assuming that there's definitely nothing else.

I think this would be one for your broker to talk directly to the underwriters of a few insurance companies to make a case, before submitting an application. A little bit of negotiating might work, to get them to move past their standard line of "if there's a test outstanding, we wait..."

Thanks for taking time to reply.

GaGa21

Has she health insurance? It may cover her to travel to UK where you will get an endometriosis diagnosis quicker privately. To be honest, Gynes in Ireland are not experienced enough to surgically excise endo here so if she does get a diagnosis here, please do research regarding treatment. The EAI is a great source of info.