Declaring your families’ medical history to your insurer.

Death can be a pretty sensitive subject. Insurance underwriters may seem to be cold-hearted, sizing you up and calculating your life expectancy, and charging you more if there’s greater risk that you will die early. Unfortunately, that’s how life insurance works.

Your insurance provider will always ask questions about your family’s medical history. Not about your uncle Tony’s broken leg, or cousin Kate’s tennis elbow, but inherited conditions such as coronary heart disease, cancer, stroke and diabetes.

It’s worth mentioning it’s usually only immediate family that you need to mention; think parents and siblings. Often, if only one relative has been affected it may have little or no impact on your life insurance premium – it depends on the insurer.

Many only look for family illness diagnosed before aged 60 or 65. If illness has been diagnosed after that they will almost certainly disregard it. If there happens to be a history of family illness your insurer will either charge you more or may even exclude that particular condition from the cover, while covering all other conditions in the usual way.

Going through your family medical history with a fine-tooth comb is essential. If you have a history of an illness, which you then develop but have failed to declare, your policy will be unlikely to pay out.