Breast cancer history and insurance underwriting

This is one of the histories where the difference between a well-prepared application and a poorly prepared one is largest. Underwriters have detailed rating tables for it, and those tables are driven by specifics that only a clinical record can supply. An application that arrives with the oncology report attached is assessed on the merits; one that arrives without it spends two months in an evidence loop first.

The other point worth making plainly is that terms improve with time in a fairly structured way. Many insurers apply a loading that steps down over the years since treatment finished, so the question is often not whether cover is available but when, and on what glide path.

The follow-up questions are specific and are drawn directly from what a rating table needs.

• The date of diagnosis and the staging and grading recorded.
• The treatment given — surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, hormone therapy — and dates.
• Whether any maintenance or hormone therapy continues, and until when.
• Whether there has been any recurrence.
• The surveillance schedule and the date of the most recent review.
• Family history, which is assessed alongside the personal history.

Evidence commonly requested

• An oncology or breast clinic report covering diagnosis, treatment and follow-up.
• Full GP notes.
• Recent surveillance results.

What underwriters look at over time is accumulated years since treatment finished, attendance at scheduled surveillance, absence of recurrence in the record, and a recent specialist letter confirming the current position. Where maintenance therapy is still in progress, some insurers prefer to wait until it has finished before offering their best terms, which is a timing question worth asking about before applying.

These are the details that decide whether the cover does what you expected. Read them before you compare on price.

• That the recorded staging drives the rating far more than the diagnosis label does.
• Whether a trauma exclusion is written to the specific cancer or to cancer generally.
• Whether the life loading offered is fixed or reduces as years accumulate.
• That ongoing maintenance therapy may make waiting the better option — ask before applying.
• That an older decline is worth retesting, because appetite has moved.

Every New Zealand insurer writes applications with a cancer history to its own wording, and the words are where the money is. Two policies that look identical on price can pay very differently when it matters. Closing that gap is the entire job of an adviser.

• Appetite for this history differs by insurer and by the specifics, and is not published anywhere.
• An adviser can pre-assess anonymously across insurers before any record is created.
• The oncology report should be in the file at the outset; an adviser will make sure it is.
• Where a trauma exclusion is offered, an adviser can ask for narrower wording before you accept.

There are three ways to buy life cover in New Zealand, and they are not equivalent. You can buy direct from one insurer, which means you see one product range and one underwriting appetite. You can buy through your bank, which usually means a single insurer’s product sold under the bank’s brand, often with narrower definitions. Or you can go through an adviser, who quotes several insurers at once and is required to put your interests first.

The premium you pay is the same either way. Insurers build adviser commission into their pricing whether or not an adviser is involved, so going direct does not get you a discount — it just removes the person whose job is to argue your corner at application and at claim time.

• An adviser can see which insurer is currently taking your health history on standard terms, and which one will load or exclude it.
• An adviser can structure cover across two insurers if that produces a better outcome than putting everything with one.
• An adviser handles the underwriting back-and-forth, and is the person who chases the claim when a family is least able to.
• An adviser has to document why the recommendation suits you, which is a written record you can hold them to.

We are a referral service, not an insurer. We do not quote premiums and we do not sell policies. What we do is put you in front of one licensed New Zealand adviser who can compare the market properly.

1. 1

   You tell us what you are looking at

   The form takes about a minute. Nobody asks for your medical history on a web form — that conversation happens with the adviser, properly, and only once you have decided to proceed.

2. 2

   An adviser calls you

   A licensed New Zealand adviser talks through your situation: who depends on you, what you owe, what you already have in place, and what you are actually worried about.

3. 3

   They compare the market

   The adviser quotes across the major insurers, checks which of them will take your health history on the best terms, and puts the options side by side in writing.

4. 4

   You decide, in your own time

   There is no obligation and no cost to you. If the answer is that you already have enough cover, a good adviser will tell you that.