We're in the process of sorting out life and TPD insurance. Mines all good, but were having issues with Emma's.
Emma suffered quite bad with regular, sever headaches for a few years. In the end she went to see the Doc and they ran a few tests, ultimately putting it down to soft tissue damage in her neck. She's been on a very mild dose of an anti depressant, (way lower dosage than when used as an anti depressant), but it is commonly prescribed for headaches stemming from the neck. It's taken long term and has worked very well once the dosage level was tweaked.
As it is likely she'll be on this medication for seem time, and is currently seeing the Doc for updates every 4 months, we told the insurance company during the application. They had to refer it to the underwriter.
The underwriter came back today, they will insure Emma BUT they have the huge exclusion list that basically excluded ANY issues stemming from a problem with her spine or neck, including such things as say she got hit by a bus and broke her neck or back, they won't cover it.
It ridiculous as the issue stems from a muscle in the neck and has nothing to do with the spine.
We went back to them and said it wasn't acceptable, would they look at it again and we'd be happy to exclude anything resulting from specifically that particular neck muscle but excluding anything to do with the spine is pretty ridiculous.
They won't budge.
We're looking at another company now, with a different underwriter and hopefully they will be more sensible.
It made me wonder though, can insurance companies refuse you cover for any reason they like, or do they have to have just cause in refusing something?
If they have to have reasonable grounds to refuse cover, is the an ombudsman that can be contacted to review?
Cheers.
Emma suffered quite bad with regular, sever headaches for a few years. In the end she went to see the Doc and they ran a few tests, ultimately putting it down to soft tissue damage in her neck. She's been on a very mild dose of an anti depressant, (way lower dosage than when used as an anti depressant), but it is commonly prescribed for headaches stemming from the neck. It's taken long term and has worked very well once the dosage level was tweaked.
As it is likely she'll be on this medication for seem time, and is currently seeing the Doc for updates every 4 months, we told the insurance company during the application. They had to refer it to the underwriter.
The underwriter came back today, they will insure Emma BUT they have the huge exclusion list that basically excluded ANY issues stemming from a problem with her spine or neck, including such things as say she got hit by a bus and broke her neck or back, they won't cover it.
It ridiculous as the issue stems from a muscle in the neck and has nothing to do with the spine.
We went back to them and said it wasn't acceptable, would they look at it again and we'd be happy to exclude anything resulting from specifically that particular neck muscle but excluding anything to do with the spine is pretty ridiculous.
They won't budge.
We're looking at another company now, with a different underwriter and hopefully they will be more sensible.
It made me wonder though, can insurance companies refuse you cover for any reason they like, or do they have to have just cause in refusing something?
If they have to have reasonable grounds to refuse cover, is the an ombudsman that can be contacted to review?
Cheers.