During a routine health check 10 years ago, I was diagnosed as having an irregular heart beat (herzrythmusstoerung). I had a couple of hospital procedures which fixed it. I take a pill everyday which stops it recurring. Since it was fixed, I've had regular 6 monthly check-ups and my heart beat, blood pressure and everything else has been perfect.
We moved to Germany recently and I'm trying to take out life insurance. The one offer I've had so far increased my premium from 150 to 350 eur per month, because of my previous heart problem.
Firstly, is the hike in premiums reasonable, given that the condition is under control, and is not in fact life threatening anyway?
Secondly, is it worth shopping around, or will all insurance companies have much the same rule?
Thanks in advance.
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Life insurance for someone with heart problems
Will all companies hike the premiums so?
I think the question to ask is: How does your heart problem affect your statistical life expectancy? If insurance companies have a valid reason to assume that you have a much higher probability of dying much earlier, then they will always demand much higher premiums. If on the other hand your life expectancy is hardly affected by your medical problem, then shopping around might help (some insurance companies just don't want to bother with assessing prior health problems, and slap them with prohibitive penalties).
Since your profile indicates you are from the UK you may be expecting a life insurance policy to be like a UK one - normally a good way in UK of making savings whilst covering risk. Such policies in Germany rarely gave gains in the same league as UK policies (at least UK policies in the past) and on top of that such gains are now taxed in Germany (for new policies).
Thus if you are looking to life insurance as a means to create wealth for your old age its probably better to look elsewhere. If you are looking to cover just risk then go for the appropriate policy.
There are others in this forum who can advise (eg Starshollow).
Thus if you are looking to life insurance as a means to create wealth for your old age its probably better to look elsewhere. If you are looking to cover just risk then go for the appropriate policy.
There are others in this forum who can advise (eg Starshollow).
You could try getting quotes from UK life assurance companies, they will still insure you living in Germany.
If you require term cover plus investment for pension in one policy, Friends Provident in Germany offer a policy without health questions (even if you´re already ill) and pay out in case of death after 36 months 60% of the covered insurance sum to your benficiary.If you die before 36 months, the beneficiary gets the premiums back.Best wishes!
Thanks for the replies. I'll certainly check out Friends Provident.
Just wanted to get back to what HEM wrote above: if you are looking for a risk-insurance only, it should be possible to get you something without such a high increase in premium. But of course it is a higher statistical risk for the insurance to be considered. However I would warn against using life insurance for pension planning, this is usually and particularily in Germany a pretty bad deal and it is not without due reason that the "Verbraucherschutz" or customer protection agencies in Germany are so adverse against this typical German mistake. If you need insurance, get an insurance and if you want to invest money, do so with an investment/pension plan but do not take a combination of both because it most cases you will end up with the worst of two worlds.
Having said that: john is right as always, Friends Provident has a good solution which is reasonably fair. If someone looks for a pension paying investment instead: there is another provider who pays actually a higher pension per month if you have pre-existing conditions because then of course they have a lower riks of paying out the pension until you are 99 years of age...
Cheerio
Having said that: john is right as always, Friends Provident has a good solution which is reasonably fair. If someone looks for a pension paying investment instead: there is another provider who pays actually a higher pension per month if you have pre-existing conditions because then of course they have a lower riks of paying out the pension until you are 99 years of age...
Cheerio
Hello again,
Just to clarify, I'm looking for life insurance purely to cover our morgtgage, peferably a decreasing term one, which goes down as the remaining mortgage goes down. Not for investment, pension, etc.
Just to clarify, I'm looking for life insurance purely to cover our morgtgage, peferably a decreasing term one, which goes down as the remaining mortgage goes down. Not for investment, pension, etc.
Gerry.Don´t know how old you are but a friend of mine, 29, took out a decreasing term insurance, 250000 euros for 20 years, for the same mortgage reason as you. As a non-smoker, he is paying c.17 euros a month. Even if you have to pay double for health /risk reasons, it wouldn´t be expensive for you.Can let you know where, if interested.
John g
sounds interesting, do you have a web site address I could look at?
Incidentally, I'm 45, but even so, the quote I had was way out of line with what I was expecting.
sounds interesting, do you have a web site address I could look at?
Incidentally, I'm 45, but even so, the quote I had was way out of line with what I was expecting.
Gery, it´s www.deltadirekt.de.Only in German, I´m afraid!
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