Life Insurance with a heart condition

When you’re ready to get a policy a life insurance provider will ask some questions about you and the cover you want. You’ll need to disclose information about your health history. Life insurance providers calculate how much you need to pay (your premium). The price takes account of your health history, including heart conditions. Relevant heart conditions can include:

• Heart disease, including heart attacks and angina
• Heart failure
• Stroke
• High blood pressure
• Heart bypass surgery

Unfortunately, it’s difficult to get life insurance with a heart condition. In some cases you may be able to get cover but pay higher premiums, but often, life insurance is unavailable if you have a heart condition.

If you’ve experienced a heart attack, or suffer with high blood pressure, for example, you will not be able to get life insurance with Legal & General.

In other instances we may request your medical records in order to make an decision. For example, if you've experienced angina on its own, or high blood pressure that led to a hospital admission in the last 12 months,

Other providers may take a different approach to some health conditions. It could be worth shopping around or talking to a financial adviser.

Ultimately, the information you provide in your application will have an impact on the amount you'll pay for your cover or the ability to get life insurance with a heart condition.

An insurer will consider your family medical history, including any heart conditions, and may seek your consent to access your medical records before deciding whether to offer you a policy.

If a customer doesn’t answer application questions honestly, an insurer could cancel the policy without refunding premiums It’s important to include accurate information about any heart conditions when you apply for life insurance – failure to do so could prevent your beneficiaries from getting a life insurance payout. Fraudulent information can even result in legal action.

A Life Insurance policy pays out if you die while the policy is in place. So if you die as a result of a heart condition and a valid claim is made the policy would pay out.

You also have the option of adding Critical Illness Cover for an extra cost when you take out life insurance. This type of cover could pay out if you undergo a medical operation or are diagnosed with a specfied illness that we cover, which includes the following heart conditions:

• Aorta graft surgery - requiring surgical replacement
• Cardiac arrest – with the insertion of a defibrillator
• Cardiomyopathy – of specified severity
• Coronary artery bypass grafts – with surgery to divide the breastbone or thoracotomy
• Heart attack – of specified severity
• Complete heart transplant – from another donor
• Open heart surgery – with median sternotomy
• Primary pulmonary hypertension – of specified severity.

Everyone’s circumstances are different, but if you have a heart condition, below are some of the different types of life insurance you could research.

• Life Insurance - if you were to die while covered by the policy, a life insurance payout could support your loved ones with ongoing living costs, including the mortgage or rent, household bills and childcare.
• Decreasing Life Insurance - is designed to help protect a repayment mortgage and is a common consideration when buying a home. With this type of insurance, the amount of cover reduces roughly in line with the way a repayment mortgage decreases.
• Critical Illness Cover - If you have Life Insurance or Decreasing Life Insurance, you could pay to add Critical Illness Cover. This can provide you with financial support if you have a specified illness, including certain heart conditions.

There is the option of Income Protection. So If you’re signed off from work due to illness or injury, our Income Protection Benefit or Illness and Injury Insurance can provide you with a monthly benefit to lessen the financial impact on your family. Income Protection from Legal & General is only available through our team of financial advisers. You can call them on 0808 271 2378 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday. We may record and monitor calls.