Mortgage insurance cover - chronic illness

[House2020]

Hello - desperately seeking advice!

We are in the process of selling our house and buying another. We need to extend our existing life insurance by about 100k.

My health is good, non smoker but my wife has a chronic thyroid illness since 2010 that was difficult to manage initially but now well under control following a surgery and medication for the last 2 years.

My wife filled out the forms last time and gave the material information about her chronic illness and we got mortgage protection for about 100 per month for both of us.

however upon extending the mortgage cover this time I realised that she didn’t disclose the fact that her father has type 1 diabetes (dx under age 60) and also that she was prescribed anti depressants and anti anxiety meds to help her deal with the stress of the chronic illness. SHe is off the anti-D’s for about 3 years now.

Will we be able to get mortgage protection cover for us both now?

Does it look terrible that we are now disclosing additional information that we didn’t disclose first time round? There was no malice intended just bad attention to detail.

if she is refused mortgage insurance will the bank take a policy that covers just me? I am the primary breadwinner and she is on invalidity Pension.

 

[RedOnion]

I'm not an expert in the area, but I think the lack of disclosure would void your existing cover. It would come to light if a claim was made, and insurer wouldn't pay.

That aside, the legislation requiring mortgage protection is actually to protect you, not the bank. If you can show you've been refused cover then the bank can waive the requirement. They all have their own underwriting policies so you would need to ask (or use a broker who's familiar with all the banks policies).

There are a few insurers specialising in this type of cover, but it's expensive. Most are UK based, so they might be scaling back on writing new business here.