Pension Disability Payment Exclusions

R

Rodmcc

Guest
Three months ago I took out a pension. As part of the acceptance I had to undergo a medical examination. I did this and the doctor told me there were no health issues. However, my broker has informed me that there is an exclusion on my policy as a result of having experienced a back strain (muscular) a number of years ago. I have not had any trouble since and do not have back problems. My difficulty is that I am being told that even if I were in a car crash and suffered any back damage, that they would not pay a disability benefit because of the above incident. To me this is completely unacceptable as a point of principle. This decision is currently being appealed by my broker as I have instructed him to get the decision reversed of lose my business. Are these over cautious exclusions the norm or is it the pension company chancing their arms? Has anyone had this experience? Thanks
 
This sounds like Permanent Health Insurance (aka Income Protection) is being offered as an added benefit to your pension.

A huge percentage of ongoing claims on this type of insurance are related to back ailments. Your broker will no doubt be able to provide you with claims statistics to verify this for your chosen insurer. But most insurers do take any form of previous back injury very seriously.

While you may not have suffered any subsequent problems after your injury, perhaps they have reason to believe that a reoccurrence could be possible or probable? It's also possible that your back may have been weakened by the previous incident, so that it would be injured more easily in the "car crash" scenario than that of the proverbial "next man".

If your broker negotiates with your insurer, they may be prepared to narrow the exclusion to specific areas of the back rather than the entire backbone. They may be prepared to remove the exclusion altogether, but in my experience this is rare.

You do have the option to go elsewhere but most underwriters of this class of insurance do tend to take a broadly similar view.

Don't throw out the entire concept on the basis of one exclusion. If you identified a need for Income Protection, this doesn't go away. Even with a back exclusion, you're still covered for everything else.

Hope this helps.

Liam D Ferguson
www.ferga.com
 
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