When you pay your premiums for Life or Health Insurance you want to know that when you make a claim that it would be paid. Duty of Disclosure is a leading cause of denied claims and you need to know what this means and how to make sure you put yourself in the best possible position to get your claims paid when you need it. There is one simple thing that most people that don’t do that LIP recommend every client does before applying for cover.

Duty of Disclosure will be something that any adviser will discuss with you before you go through an application, it’s the bit about making sure you are disclosing information to the insurer so they can assess you application. You will get something along these lines either from your adviser or the insurer (or both) before you apply:

The person to be insured and the policy owner(s) must answer all questions asked of them completely and correctly, and disclose to the insurer all material information, whether the information is asked for or not.

Material information is information that might influence our decision to insure you and, if so, on what terms and/or premium. If you have any doubt as to whether a fact is material, then it must be disclosed.

This isn’t about people lying to the insurer or choosing not to share information with the insurer in my experience, people simply don’t recall events in an instance as well as they often need to. I put this to the test when completing a new application for myself in 2020. I did what most people do and completed the application from memory alone. I forgot something quite major that ended up having blindness excluded from my Trauma Cover policy because the insurer requested my medical records from my GP, something that they don’t always do.

So disclosing lead to an exclusion… is the conclusion to try not disclose information to make sure cover doesn’t have exclusions or loadings? Well let’s say the insurer didn’t pull my records in this instance and the exclusion was not placed on my cover. Years later I make a claim for blindness, that is where you can guarantee the insurer will request my medical records see new information not disclosed in the application and my claim is denied. Scrap that, let’s say another neurological condition strikes and I go to make a claim, do I want the insurer to look at the new information with hindsight? Hell no.

That is all to say that you will get the best possible outcome having an exclusion on application rather than at claim time. What’s more is that most exclusions can be reviewed in the future and if you have not had any symptoms that exclusion may be removed. If it is a permanent exclusion (i.e. cannot be reviewed) at least you can plan for that and you are not relying on an insurance claim that will not be paid.

So what is the one thing you can do that will mitigate if not eliminate this issue? Get your medical records from your GP before your submit an application. Do not rely on your memory alone, you can request your records from your GP which will give you certainty that when it comes to making a claim that it will be paid.

As part of our service we now recommend that anyone applying for Life Insurance get hold of their records before filling out an application.

Make sure your application is done right and get in touch with us to help guide you through the process.