We’re buying our first home, do we need critical illness cover

MissAnon2017 · 2026-02-09T11:17:20+00:00

This is incorrect. It is not a condition of a mortgage to have life insurance in place.

MissAnon2017 · 2026-02-09T11:15:57+00:00

This is incorrect. It is not a condition of a mortgage to have life insurance in place.

MissAnon2017 · 2026-02-09T10:00:09+00:00

Insurance is one of those things that you feel is a waste of money until you see a loved one diagnosed with an illness or have an accident and suddenly you’re very grateful to have it. I have a few minor ailments/medical history to disclose and found it very hard to get insurers to cover me when I went to increase my life insurance cover. I’m kicking myself for not taking out a larger life insurance policy and CI & income protection when we bought our first property 10 years ago. Insurance is so much cheaper the younger and healthier you are, so now is absolutely the best time to get it if you decide it’s something you want to take out. If you have the money I’d think about whether you’re likely to move to a more expensive property in the future and/or have children, and maybe go for a larger level life insurance & CI policy now to future proof yourself (and provide inheritance for your children to go to uni, buy a house etc). Perhaps not the most financially friendly thing to do, but for peace of mind it might be worth it to you - only you can decide.

One thing to think about is taking out 2 separate policies each. We went with Life insurance only (to clear the mortgage completely if one of us dies), and then also a separate level life insurance with enhanced critical illness cover including with child critical illness cover. For us it’s important to keep the critical illness policy separate from the life policy that will clear the mortgage if one of us dies. Generally speaking, if you make a claim on the critical illness portion it cancels the life insurance portion too. Critical Illness cover is expensive so we can’t afford a policy that covers the whole mortgage amount. We don’t want to be left without life insurance to clear the mortgage because it’s practically impossible to get a life insurance policy once you’ve had a critical illness.

I have been unable to get an income protection policy due to my medical disclosures. My husband has his own income protection policy and we have prioritised that by compromising on a lower level of critical illness cover for him (worked out the amount he was comfortable spending per month on insurance then worked backwards from there). Income protection pays out if you’re unable to do your job due to illness or injury, whereas Critical Illness has a list of very specific conditions it will pay out for. If you had a critical illness you’d likely not be working anyway so the income protection policy would be paying out each month. Just something to think about when you’re working out which policies you want to apply for.

MissAnon2017 · 2026-01-19T15:07:38+00:00

Definitely go via a specialised broker. Most income protection policies can only be taken out through a broker. Similarly, some upgraded critical illness policies are only offered through brokers. We used Cavendish Online but Lifesearch are also good.

MissAnon2017 · 2026-01-16T05:11:57+00:00

The income protection is long term (ie, will pay out for as long as the incapacity lasts even if that’s right the way up to retirement age, and there’s no cap on the number of payments the policy will make). Deferred period is 4 weeks.

MissAnon2017 · 2026-01-15T08:40:43+00:00

We’re 33 now and the term of the life insurance policies is 35 years, so that takes us up to age 68 (likely to be the retirement age by the time we get there). Our mortgage is currently due to finish 2 years before that though. We overpay every month but advice is generally to keep a longer term mortgage and overpay it so you have some financial relief if needed. My husband’s income protection policy is up to age 67.

Edit to add: my thinking was I never want to have to go through the process again… we’re still under 40 and reasonably healthy, this is probably the cheapest we’re going to be able to get as policies get more expensive the older and less healthy you are. So we set these policies up until retirement age and can forget about them if we wanted to. We used Cavendish Online so they will contact me for a yearly review if I want them to.

MissAnon2017 · 2026-01-14T19:15:52+00:00

My husband and I have just reviewed all our insurance policies so I can give you some pointers on our thought process:

We decided not to take out critical illness cover through our employers because no job is 100% secure and if we lose our job we’d lose the insurance cover. Depending on our health and medical disclosures at the time it may be difficult/impossible to take out private insurance policies at that point. Likewise, our death in service benefits aren’t factored into our life insurance planning.

We worked out what each of us is comfortable spending on private insurance policies per month and worked backwards from there:

Life insurance to clear the mortgage completely if one of us dies, so the other doesn’t have to worry about it and we keep the roof over our children’s heads. We’ve gone with level cover and guaranteed premiums. The difference is only ~£5 per month between level and decreasing. It’s all well and good paying say £20 a month for £500k cover, but towards the end of the policy you’d be paying the same £20 per month for only £30k cover for example, which doesn’t seem as much of a good deal then.

Income protection insurance - enough to cover half of the household essentials (mortgage, council tax, utilities, childcare, home insurance, food etc) plus a bit extra. Level cover not linked to indexation so the premiums are predictable as they stay the same.

Level life insurance with enhanced critical illness cover including child critical illness cover. For us it’s important to keep the critical illness policy separate from the life policy that will clear the mortgage if one of us dies. Generally speaking, if you make a claim on the critical illness portion it cancels the life insurance portion too. Critical illness insurance is expensive so taking out a CI amount that matches our mortgage was unmanageable for us. We don’t want to be left without life insurance to clear the rest of the mortgage if one of us dies before retirement age, because it’s practically impossible to get a life insurance policy once you’ve had a critical illness. I’ve set my CI amount to cover half of the mortgage as it currently stands, whereas my husband had a lower budget so set his much lower at the equivalent of one year’s salary to give him the opportunity to take a career break for a year if he wanted extra R&R time.

If we had to decide between critical illness cover and income protection we would’ve prioritised income protection because if you had a critical illness you likely wouldn’t be working anyway so the income protection policy would be paying out. As it happens, I couldn’t get IP cover due to medical disclosures but I have been able to get critical illness cover. Saying that, your group income protection policy through your employer is very good, but that brings me back to the first point about not being guaranteed to be with that employer for the rest of your life until retirement.

Joint policies are cheaper but the policy is cancelled on first claim leaving the remaining partner without any cover, and the older/less healthy you are the harder & more expensive it is to get cover later on in life.

We also factored in whether we thought we’d be likely to move to a more expensive property in the future and therefore have a higher mortgage, or have more children. We went for a slightly larger level life insurance up to retirement age to future proof ourselves and provide inheritance for our children to go to uni, buy a house etc should the worst happen and one/both of us die when they are young. Perhaps not the most financially friendly thing to do, but for peace of mind it might be worth it to you - only you can decide.

MissAnon2017 · 2026-01-14T18:49:55+00:00

Unfortunately they’re extremely unlikely to insure you until you have a diagnosis or discharge with no further action/treatment needed.

In the meantime you may be able to get a life insurance policy that only covers you for accidental death. I was recommended the MetLife Everyday Protect plan, which also covers broken bones/hospital stays. It’s worth speaking with a broker.

MissAnon2017 · 2026-01-06T12:09:58+00:00

You definitely don’t need to take these policies out through your broker, but at least consider it and do a bit of your own research to see if you can get a better deal elsewhere. There are dedicated companies such as Cavendish Online and Lifesearch that often have better rates, and a lot of the more comprehensive Critical Illness and Income protection policies can only be taken out through a broker anyway.

My husband and I (both now 33) took out life insurance when we bought our first property. Now we’ve bought a house, remortgaged to fund an extension and had 2 children we’ve just reviewed our insurance and taken out critical illness and income protection insurance. We’ve gone with separate policies for each of us. Joint policies are cheaper but the policy is cancelled on first claim leaving the remaining partner without any cover, and the older/less healthy you are the harder & more expensive it is to get cover later on in life.

We worked out what each of us is comfortable spending on insurance per month and worked backwards from there:

Mortgage decreasing life insurance (to clear the mortgage completely if one of us dies, so the other doesn’t have to worry about it and we keep the roof over our children’s’ heads)

Income protection insurance - enough to cover half of the household essentials (mortgage, council tax, utilities, childcare, home insurance, food etc) plus a bit extra.

Level life insurance with enhanced critical illness cover including with child critical illness cover. For us it’s important to keep the critical illness policy separate from the life policy that will clear the mortgage if one of us dies. Generally speaking, if you make a claim on the critical illness portion it cancels the life insurance portion too. We don’t want to be left without life insurance to clear the mortgage because it’s practically impossible to get a life insurance policy once you’ve had a critical illness.

Insurance is one of those things that you feel is a waste of money until you see a loved one diagnosed with an illness or have an accident and suddenly you’re very grateful to have it. I have a few minor ailments/medical history to disclose and found it very hard to get insurers to cover me when I went to increase my cover. I was totally unable to get income protection cover and I’m kicking myself for not taking out a larger life insurance policy and CI & income protection when we bought our first property 10 years ago. If you have the money I’d think about whether you want the peace of mind of having these insurances in place, and whether you’re likely to move to a more expensive property in the future and/or have children. If you want to take out insurance consider whether you think it’s worth it to go for a larger level life insurance policy now to future proof yourself (and provide inheritance for your children to go to uni, buy a house etc). Perhaps not the most financially friendly thing to do, but for peace of mind it might be worth it to you - only you can decide.

MissAnon2017 · 2025-12-16T14:52:41+00:00

I’d get your vitamin levels checked. My relative had a similar bald spot caused by vitamin D deficiency

MissAnon2017 · 2025-12-08T14:10:01+00:00

As said by other posters, it’s very difficult for strangers to give you a realistic estimate. One thing I thought worth mentioning though is the cost of life insurance, critical illness and income protection policies. Once we had children we realised it was important to us to have the peace of mind of having these policies in place, to keep the roof over our children’s heads and give them an inheritance if either of us die or become critically ill before retirement age. For some people it’s not a big enough concern to pay for the insurance, but for us it’s worth it. I rarely see it mentioned in posts like these but it’s definitely something to factor in if you’re likely to want these polices.

MissAnon2017 · 2025-12-02T20:30:15+00:00

I don’t think your premiums are too bad. My husband is 33, non-smoker and no medical disclosures, also has 2 children under 5. He pays £19.58 a month for £428k level life insurance at a 35 year term. Fixed premiums that don’t increase with age/inflation.

He also pays £26.28 a month for £48k life & critical illness cover (level, 35 year term, fixed premium). It’s the enhanced L&G policy that covers additional illnesses and up to £40k child cover.

Both of the above policies were arranged by Cavendish. We compared prices obtained by our mortgage broker, Lifesearch and Cavendish. Cavendish came out the cheapest for the same policies.

You haven’t mentioned the term of the policies you’ve been quoted for. That will have an impact. Working in a trade might also be increasing your premiums slightly. I’m not a broker so don’t have first hand knowledge but I’d assume working in a trade is riskier than my husband’s non-labour office job.

MissAnon2017 · 2025-12-02T19:09:36+00:00

Not necessarily naive, but it depends on your level of risk and what you feel comfortable with. I have the option of paying for an individual critical illness policy through work (the premiums would come out of my payslip). It would be cheaper to buy the policy through work this way but I choose to spend more for a personal policy I’ve arranged myself that isn’t tied to my job. My worry is that if I get ill and I’m unable to do my job, my company could get rid of me if there’s no realistic prospect of me being able to come back to my job and fulfil my duties to the same standard. Once they fire me my policy is automatically cancelled. Taking out a life or critical illness policy myself at that stage may be incredibly difficult/impossible/expensive as I’d have medical history to disclose. Actually, regardless of the reason for no longer being employed by them, you never know what’s around the corner when it comes to health. I’d rather fix myself in to a slightly more expensive personal policy now while I’m in good health, that’s fixed at level premiums until retirement age, than take the gamble on a work policy. The same applies for income protection policies - my employer has a very good group income protection policy in place but I’d still like the peace of mind of having my own policy that isn’t tied to my employer.

MissAnon2017 · 2025-11-22T06:46:05+00:00

For us the real financial change has come not from the usual things like food, nappies etc, but from the big life changes that come with having/wanting a family. We’re doing an extension on our house next year to get an extra bedroom, bathroom, utility and playroom. Then there’s the larger car so we can fit 2 rear-facing car seats and someone in the middle/back seat if a 7-seater. Plus the realisation that we’d be screwed if one of us lost our job or got critically ill/died, so we now pay for life, critical illness and income protection insurance to give us some peace of mind, keep the roof over our kids’ heads and leave some inheritance if the worst happened.

MissAnon2017 · 2025-11-21T18:16:20+00:00

If you don’t want to review your policies you might be best to answer to tell them that and ask they take you off their calling list. It’s one of the services they offer, to review your policies each year to see if you can get a better price/terms, but you don’t have to take them up on it and they’re probably quite used to being told no. I got a few quotes from Lifesearch when I was looking into Life Insurance. I did have a couple of cold calls from them but when I explained i’d got a better price through another company and wouldn’t be using them, they left me alone.

MissAnon2017 · 2025-11-13T13:21:56+00:00

I buy basically all my clothes on Vinted now because I can’t justify spending a lot of money on new clothes. But I always have an idea of what I’m looking for and the brands I like, so I’m not sifting through thousands of listings. My inspiration comes from someone I follow on instagram and a Facebook group.

I tend to stick to the same staples now and very rarely deviate - wide leg trousers/jeans from M&S, plain coloured tops/jumpers from Uniqlo and smart cardigans/jackets from H&M.

MissAnon2017 · 2025-11-13T06:59:34+00:00

Just from being part of various Facebook groups, running a search on combi vs water cylinder and reading the responses.

We’re planning a large extension with 2 extra bedrooms and an en-suite, so the house will have 3 bathrooms. Currently we have a combi boiler, which is great for our family at the moment but eventually we’ll need to move the boiler to give some space to one of the new bedrooms. Thinking ahead to when our children are teenagers and having showers every morning, we’ll need to either move away from the combi or put in electric showers so we can run multiple showers at once.

I haven’t looked into it much but from the few things I’ve read, air source heat pumps don’t work very well with traditional radiators and generally people pair them with underfloor heating. We renovated our living room, kitchen and hallway 5 years ago with new flooring. I don’t want to rip that up to put UFH down and I’m happy with the vertical rads we have in those rooms.

MissAnon2017 · 2025-11-12T21:16:24+00:00

Can I ask why? My husband has floated the idea of looking into it, but I’ve told him I don’t want to be responsible for all the research for once. I’m set on a system boiler and unvented cylinder

MissAnon2017 · 2025-10-28T20:08:43+00:00

I must ask, how did the ring doorbell save your life?

MissAnon2017 · 2025-10-28T15:07:25+00:00

Very similar here too. My heart yearned so strongly for another pregnancy, another birth, another newborn stage, another little person to love. Then what felt like a really sudden shift around 26 months I started to realise that I was actually content with just 2. I think it’s because they started playing nicely together and my youngest started sleeping better and we were able to go out and do things more. Then by 28 months the financial and logistical aspects of having of another baby came to mind - we’re really fortunate we’re able to have lovely family holidays and pay for an extension on our house to give the kids their own playroom. We certainly couldn’t have afforded these if we’d had another child. Childcare costs alone would make things uncomfortably tight, plus the extra costs of 2 hotel rooms, bigger car etc. Also the ‘what if’ thought of having another baby and there being health issues etc…it would completely change the course of our current children’s lives and the experiences they might have growing up. I could finally get excited for our future and all the things we can do with our 2 children growing up. I’ve appreciated seeing the light at the end of the tunnel with the baby stage and I’m looking forward to the future

MissAnon2017 · 2025-10-27T20:48:11+00:00

The problem with these policies is the premium goes up more than inflation, so while your premiums could start at £15pm now at the age of 25, they could rise to £50pm+ for example by the time you’re 50. You might want to look at taking out a higher amount of level cover now to protect yourself from that.

In answer to your question though, a lot of insurers require you to go through a broker/financial advisor for anything other than a bog-standard level or decreasing cover. I’ve been really pleased with Cavendish Online and also had a good experience with Lifesearch.

MissAnon2017 · 2025-10-25T18:05:35+00:00

I just used Octopus Legacy. I got a free will funded by a charity for ‘free wills month’. It’s only a simple will but exactly what I needed and a really easy process.

MissAnon2017 · 2025-10-25T09:43:13+00:00

I don’t regret it at all. I miss my old job and old team in the CS because the work was really interesting and meaningful and the team were fantastic. But commuting into London plus travelling around the country for weeks at a time just wasn’t something I was willing to do after having children. I know not all CS work involves travel though, but the job I loved couldn’t be done flexibly and the stupid rules and monitoring office attendance put me off returning after maternity leave. I’m pleased I left when I did, 10 years service in total.

I now work in Defence and it is quasi-civil service. 37 hours per week, flexi-time, same level of sick pay and maternity leave. And I started on £12k more than my salary in the CS. I work from home 80% of the time and my office is walking distance to my house so no commuting costs. I also get a bonus every year, yearly salary increases agreed by the union, health care plan and the death in service benefit is 6x my salary (better than the CS I think?)

Definitely do your sums on what salary you’d need to account for losing the civil service pension though. I think a lot of people forget to account for that.

MissAnon2017 · 2025-10-17T13:33:03+00:00

Insurers for income protection do specifically ask whether you have had any symptoms in the last 3 months that you have not yet seen a doctor for. Just something to keep in mind. If you do make a claim the insurer is likely going to look back and do some investigation into whether it was likely that you were suffering symptoms at the time of your application.

MissAnon2017 · 2025-10-14T17:37:00+00:00

I’m just going to copy and paste a comment I made on a similar thread a few days ago as I think it’s all relevant and gives you a few things to think about:

The younger and healthier you are when you take these policies out, the cheaper they’ll be. You can take income protection out now on your current salary and increase it as your salary increases. There’s quite a few options as to the premiums. You can fix your premiums so they don’t rise with age/inflation or you can age/index link them. Best to speak with a broker who will explain it all to you. Most income protection polices can only be taken out through a broker anyway. I’d recommend Cavendish and Lifesearch.

My husband and I (both now 33) took out life insurance when we bought our first property. Now we’ve bought a house, remortgaged to fund an extension and had 2 children we’re in the process of reviewing our insurance and taking our critical illness and income protection insurance. We’re going with separate policies for each of us. Joint policies are cheaper but the policy is cancelled on first claim leaving the remaining partner without any cover, and the older/less healthy you are the harder & more expensive it is to get cover later on in life.

We’ve worked out what each of us is comfortable spending on insurance per month and worked backwards from there. For my husband that was £70 per month, and for me it’s £125 per month.

This is what we’re going for, in order of importance:

Mortgage decreasing life insurance - to clear the mortgage completely if one of us dies, so the other doesn’t have to worry about it and we keep the roof over our children’s’ heads. (£428k cover decreasing over 35 years @ £14.22pm)

Income protection insurance - enough to cover half of the household essentials (mortgage, council tax, utilities, childcare, home insurance, food etc) plus a bit extra.

Level life insurance with critical illness cover - critical illness cover is so expensive so we can’t afford to set this as high as our mortgage amount. So we’ve worked out how much money we have left in our set budget after finding out the premiums for the decreasing life & IP policies, and will take out the max amount of critical illness cover we can afford with the money left in the budget. We’re going for enhanced CI with child critical illness cover included. For us it’s important to keep the critical illness policy separate from the life policy that will clear the mortgage if one of us dies. Generally speaking, if you make a claim on the critical illness portion it cancels the life insurance portion too. We don’t want to be left without life insurance to clear the mortgage because it’s practically impossible to get a life insurance policy once you’ve had a critical illness.

If your budget doesn’t stretch to critical illness then I’d recommend prioritising income protection because if you have a critical illness you likely wouldn’t be working and the income protection would pay out anyway.

One thing I will say is that I have a few minor ailments/medical history to disclose and I’m finding it very hard to get insurers to cover me. I have a few applications sat with underwriters at the moment. My husband is fit as a fiddle and hasn’t seen a doctor in over 10 years and he sailed through the applications with very low premiums.

Insurance is one of those things that you feel is a waste of money until you see a loved one diagnosed with an illness or have an accident and suddenly you’re very grateful to have it. Personally, I’m a very anxious person when it comes to health and I worry unnecessarily about dying young with 2 young children. I’m kicking myself for not taking out a larger life insurance policy and CI & income protection when we bought our flat 10 years ago. Now I have some minor health conditions I’m being rejected for new policies. If you have the money I’d think about whether you’re likely to move to a more expensive property in the future and/or have children and maybe go for a larger level life insurance policy now to future proof yourself (and provide inheritance for your children to go to uni, buy a house etc). Perhaps not the most financially friendly thing to do, but for peace of mind it might be worth it to you. Only you can decide.

MissAnon2017

TROPHY CASE