What is fully underwritten Life Insurance?

Fully underwritten can mean greater certainty

One of the key points of confusion can centre around the difference between “underwritten” cover, which is assessed upfront, versus products that are not fully underwritten, where the assessment is made at the time of claim.

What is the difference with fully-underwritten Life Insurance?

NobleOak provides “fully underwritten” Life, Total and Permanent Disability (TPD), Trauma and Income Protection insurance cover. This means that we ask a number of health, occupation and lifestyle questions upfront and sometimes require medical tests and details of your medical records, to allow us to properly tailor your cover. The costs associated with these requests are usually covered by NobleOak.

This process does take longer than cover that is not underwritten, but results in far greater certainty about the risks we’re taking to insure you, and importantly greater certainty for you at claim time.

Competing policies that are not underwritten and assessed when you apply for cover, usually contain automatic exclusion clauses which apply to pre-existing medical conditions. In short, this means that any medical condition for which you are either currently being treated, or for which you have ever been treated by a doctor in the past, will be excluded from your policy. Death caused by any of these conditions may result in a claim being declined.

Some insurance companies will exclude all pre-existing conditions from coverage, even though you may not have had treatment over the past 20 years. This is what’s known as a total pre-existing exclusion clause (PEC).

These types of policies (that are not underwritten) often result in the Life insurance company performing a more detailed review at the time of a claim arising, and this process will nearly always delay payment of the claim.

Do it right – not just fast

At NobleOak we believe you should have utmost faith and confidence in your Life insurance cover, particularly as you’re paying premiums for the security of being properly insured. By completing the underwriting process prior to the Life insurance or Income Protection policy commencing, you will know exactly what you are covered for under your Life insurance benefits with NobleOak.

In some instances NobleOak’s acceptance may be subject to a medical loading (an increase in premium rates) or possibly an exclusion specific to a client’s particular situation. In these circumstances we always ensure the client understands the basis for the loading or exclusion and that there is agreement to the revised terms before the cover commences.