HIV Life Cover Process Needs an Overhaul

December 3rd, 2010

You may be aware that Lifebroker specializes in life cover for consumers with HIV. The main provider that is used on the Lifebroker website is PruProtect however there are a few new life insurers attempting to enter the market.
An article this week in MoneyMarketing highlights that PruProtect seem to be the best option based on premium even though their insurance criteria are very strict. You can see their basic criteria here.

The article by Tom Selby looks at some findings by specialist adviser Unusual Risks whereby they accuse life insurance providers of failing to properly consider business from people living with HIV.

Lifebroker has found this very disappointing in that the process is very long and misleading. James Markwick, Managing Director at Lifebroker said "Not enough information is provided to consumers prior to them applying for cover. We cannot even provide them with an indicative monthly premium as each application is referred to the Re Insurer so that it can be costed. We tend to use PruProtect and they seem to be very competitive; however by the time the underwriting has taken place clients are loaded by at least £3 per mille (£3 per £1,000 of cover). For us this is really disappointing as we cannot really even set an expectation on price. Some applicants that have been lucky enough to be accepted have found their premiums to increase dramatically on acceptance."

Lifebroker tells their consumers to apply for cover to just find out if they will be accepted. Emma Davis, a life insurance consultant at Lifebroker said "We sadly find that many applicants get declined, usually due to another condition other than being HIV positive. It is free to apply; the insurance company pays for the Doctor's report and also contacts their HIV Specialist and therefore it has to be worth applying just to find out if they will offer you cover. If you get offered cover you can then decide how much you want to pay. You may find that £20 per month gets you £40,000 life cover for the next 10 years. Unfortunately this is not ideal, however some cover has to be better than none."

As the life insurance process is so complex when assessing life insurance whereby someone has a pre existing condition such as HIV that it feels like it takes forever to get a decision made. Once it is made and the life insurance provider declines them then this cannot feel too good.

Lifebroker would like the HIV life insurance providers to set a more realistic expectation for consumers so that they can have more understanding on the process.