Corona Virus (Covid-19) and Life Insurance

Currently, if you were to apply for life insurance it may be slightly trickier than usual. It is still possible to obtain life insurance however many providers are implementing new changes/ questions to their applications and their terms and conditions. If you were applying for life insurance, either level, decreasing or whole of life, depending on your current pre-existing medical conditions, it is highly likely that you will still be able to get cover. However, you should expect to answer questions relating to coronavirus or Covid-19, such as have you been diagnosed with coronavirus, have you displayed any symptoms of coronavirus or have you been around anyone who has symptoms. It is also possible that providers may postpone applications.

For critical illness cover, this is slightly trickier to obtain, and if you have a pre-existing medical condition it may make it even harder. However, providers are still offering critical illness cover out to their customers but like life insurance applications are taking extra care to ask about the virus in your application. It is also worth noting that it is unlikely that coronavirus would be listed as a critical illness in providers terms and conditions; so if you are looking for critical illness cover to protect you in the case of a diagnosis, this will more than likely be ineffective as Covid-19 would not be listed as a critical illness under the policy.

Income protection is similar to critical illness cover and life insurance, providers are adding in questions to their applications surrounding the topic of coronavirus. If you are applying for income protection, many, if not all, providers are implementing exclusions or postponing applications due to the coronavirus so you could not take out income protection and then make a claim on the grounds of coronavirus.

If you purchased your income protection prior to the coronavirus outbreak it is possible that you may be able to make a claim however, with income protection, there is usually a deferment period from the point of which you stop working to the point in which the policy would pay out, typically this will range from four weeks to twelve months so it is important to check your policy before applying for a claim. As a result of this, insurers say that they probably won’t have to pay out on an income protection coronavirus claim as by the time the four-week deferment period is complete, you should have recovered from coronavirus and have returned to work. Furthermore, depending on the terms of your policy, self-isolation may not qualify you for a pay-out. It is important to check your policy details and your insurers terms and conditions to see if they would pay out in the event of a claim due to coronavirus, or on a period of self-isolation not ordered by a medical professional.

With Income Protection many providers are now starting to implement coronavirus exclusions or even deferment periods of around four weeks to ensure that people are not applying for insurance and then immediately making a claim. In this situation it is important to check with the individual provider to make sure that their terms and conditions, and the policy you are applying for covers you for what you need it to.