How insurance works How cancer can affect buying insurance Unfair discrimination

Transcription

1 This information is an extract from the booklet Insurance, which is part of the financial guidance series. You may find the full booklet helpful. We can send you a free copy see page 5. Contents What is insurance? What is insurance? How insurance works How cancer can affect buying insurance Unfair discrimination Insurance helps you protect yourself against risks and financial loss. For example: Health insurance may pay you money if you become ill and are not able to work. Life insurance may provide your family or spouse with money if you die. Travel insurance may pay for medical treatment if you have an accident while on holiday. Car insurance may pay for repairs if you have an accident. There are many different types of each kind of insurance. These protect you against different things. It is very important to understand what you are covered for and how much money you will receive if you need to claim. Questions about cancer? Ask Macmillan Page 1 of 5

2 How insurance works The amount of money you pay for insurance is called the premium. Insurers set their premiums so they will have a big enough pool of money to pay out all the claims they get from customers, cover their costs and earn a profit. Insurers look at the information you give them. They use this to estimate how likely you are to claim. They also check how often other people in similar situations have claimed before. They then decide what premium to charge you. If the risk of you claiming on insurance looks higher than average, the insurer may do one of the following: They may charge you a higher premium than the standard rate. The insurance provider needs to make sure this increase is proportionate to the increased risk of you making a claim. They may apply an excess. This is the first part of the claim that is not covered by your insurance provider. You may need to pay a certain amount of money towards a claim or it may be deducted from the money you receive. If you choose a policy with a higher excess, the premium may be cheaper. They may apply exclusions. This is what isn t covered by the insurance provider. If you choose a policy with exclusions based on your medical history, make sure you understand which claims will and won t be paid. They may refuse to insure you at all. Here are some possible examples of where a higher premium is charged or exclusion is applied: Your car insurance may increase if you have an accident. You may have to pay more for travel insurance if you want to go skiing. If you already have a chronic illness, health insurance providers may exclude this condition from the cover. See pages 3 4 for details on how cancer can affect buying insurance. To assess the risk of you claiming, insurers will ask you questions. With health or life insurance, they may want to see your medical reports or ask you to have a medical examination. The insurer, not you, pays for medical reports and examinations. Page 2 of 5 Questions about cancer? Ask Macmillan

3 If you don t answer the questions fully and truthfully, the insurer may refuse to pay out if you make a claim later on. You don t have to agree to medical reports or examinations. But if the insurer doesn t have enough information to assess your application, they may refuse to cover you. The insurance market is competitive and premiums vary from one insurer to another. So it s important to shop around, especially if you have a medical condition. Insurers call this having a pre-existing medical condition. An insurance broker can help you compare deals from different companies. To find an insurance broker, contact the British Insurance Brokers Association (visit biba.org.uk, or call ). JARGON BUSTER Premium What you pay for insurance. Excess The first part of a claim that isn t covered by your insurance provider. For example, if you have a successful claim for 750 and an excess of 500, the insurer will pay you 250. Exclusion Something that s specifically not covered by the insurance, so there s no payout if it happens. Pre-existing medical condition A health condition you have at the time you take out an insurance policy or have had in recent years. Questions about cancer? Ask Macmillan Page 3 of 5

4 How cancer can affect buying insurance If you ve had cancer or you re living with cancer, you can sometimes face higher premiums, special conditions or refusal when buying life insurance and some types of health insurance. This includes policies that have a health insurance element, such as travel insurance. Does cancer affect all forms of insurance? You shouldn t have problems getting insurance unrelated to health, for example, home insurance. If you do, contact our financial guides on for information about making a complaint. Family members Your close relatives (children, brothers and sisters) may also find it hard to get life and health insurance on standard terms. This is because, in a small number of cases, people whose close relatives have had cancer may be at a higher than average risk of getting the same cancer. It may also affect your close relatives travel insurance if you are receiving or waiting for hospital treatment or have a terminal condition. Being prepared for questions When talking to insurers, you may be asked some difficult or upsetting questions about your health, for example about the likely outcome of your cancer (prognosis). Unfortunately, not all insurers are sensitive to the needs of people affected by cancer. Depending on how you feel about talking about your cancer, you may want to contact only a couple of companies at a time. Alternatively, you could contact an insurance broker who will do the research for you. Unfair discrimination Cancer is classed as a disability under the Equality Act 2010 (England, Scotland and Wales) and the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (Northern Ireland). These acts make it illegal to treat people less favourably because of a disability, but there is an exception for insurance. Page 4 of 5 Questions about cancer? Ask Macmillan

5 An insurer can treat a person with a disability differently if the disability increases the risk of claiming, but only if: the assessment of your risk of claiming is based on relevant information the information is from a source that s reasonable to rely on, such as statistical data or medical reports the way the insurer treats the person is reasonable, given the information available. Fr i If challenged, the insurer will have to provide evidence to show that it has met these conditions. NEXT STEPS For information and help about unfair discrimination because of cancer, you can contact the Equality Advisory Support Service (England, Scotland and Wales. Visit equalityadvisoryservice.com, or call ) or the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland (visit equalityni.org, or call ). More information and support More than one in three of us will get cancer. For most of us it will be the toughest fight we ever face. And the feelings of isolation and loneliness that so many people experience make it even harder. But you don t have to go through it alone. The Macmillan team is with you every step of the way. To order a copy of Insurance or any other financial guidance information, visit be.macmillan.org.uk or call We make every effort to ensure that the information we provide is accurate and up to date but it should not be relied upon as a substitute for specialist professional advice tailored to your situation. So far as is permitted by law, Macmillan does not accept liability in relation to the use of any information contained in this publication, or thirdparty information or websites included or referred to in it. Macmillan Cancer Support Registered charity in England and Wales (261017), Scotland (SC039907) and the Isle of Man (604). Registered office 89 Albert Embankment, London, SE1 7UQ REVISED IN APRIL 2015 Planned review in 2016 Questions about cancer? Ask Macmillan Page 5 of 5