Insurance
More insurers offer life cover for people with HIV
Guest Author:
Thomas SmithMore life insurers are writing policies for people with HIV but critical illness and income protection policies are still unavailable despite 61% of people surveyed saying they would ‘consider’ taking out a policy.
Life insurance for people with HIV is now available from 70% of major insurers, an increase of 20% from 2011, the HIV Life Assurance Survey 2014 by Unusual Risks found.
The first life insurance policy for people with HIV was introduced in 2009.
Last year Unusual Risks found HIV+ in the UK were insuring themselves for lower lump sums.
This year’s research found that none of the major insurers however offer critical illness cover or income protection to people who are already diagnosed with HIV.
Of those surveyed, 61% said they would consider taking out some form of income protection or critical illness cover if it was available to them.
Chris Morgan, lead financial adviser of Unusual Risks said: “We recently surveyed the top ten life assurance groups servicing brokers and were delighted to see that 70% of companies are still offering life assurance to HIV Positive people. It is encouraging to see a wide range of life assurance products available to the HIV community.
“Unusual Risks are constantly working with insurance providers to create better products and services for the HIV community. In this year’s survey we also decided to look at the availability of income protection and critical illness for people with HIV.”
He concluded: “We are now receiving regular enquiries about the availability of income protection and critical illness from HIV Positive people. However, we are still unable to offer these types of products to people living with HIV as they are unavailable in the market place”.