Women face insurance price hike warns Telford advisor
Women should apply for life and critical illness cover before December to avoid facing a premium price hike, a Shropshire advisor warned today.
Gavin Roberts, of Telford-based Chartered Independent, said many were still unaware that a new EU directive due to come into force on December 21 could see women pay up to 15% more for cover than she would today.
The predicted price boom comes after the European Union directive which will ban gender discrimination was set.
Currently women get cheaper life cover than men due to their longer life expectancy but this reduction will be lost under the new directive.
Mr Roberts, who is an independent chartered financial planner based in Horsehay, said: “Life cover and critical illness cover is something people often put off until it is too late.
“So often I have dealt with clients who have sadly got a critical illness such as cancer which has forced them to stop work with a loss of income yet they did not have a policy in place.
“Women need to realise it could be a significant price difference between taking out and getting acceptance on a policy before December 21 than after when the EU directive will be in force and providers will not be able to take the client’s gender into consideration.
“Why not make an early new year’s resolution and get your policy sorted before you are charged much more.”
Mr Roberts stressed people needed to have the policy in place by the deadline and “an application or quote the night before” was not enough to avoid the higher premiums.
He urged people to take action now because an application could take several weeks.
“Underwriting and medical issues can take many weeks if not several months and there will be thousands of people in the UK trying to do the same so I urge any woman who has not got critical illness or life cover but is considering it to take action now,” he said.
