Over 50 life insurance and cancer

Over 50 life insurance lets you leave a financial helping hand for your loved ones when you're no longer around. It's whole of life cover, which means it stretches your lifetime and ends when you die.

To take out a policy, you won’t need to answer any health questions or get poked and prodded by a doctor. It’s guaranteed acceptance if you tick off your insurer’s eligibility requirements, which are normally age related. For example, to get our over 50 life insurance, you need to be aged 50 to 80 and a UK resident.

To find out more about this type of life insurance, including the benefits and limitations, explore our over 50 life insurance.

When taking out over 50 life insurance, it doesn’t matter if you’ve had a medical condition like cancer in the past or even if you still have it when applying for cover. It isn’t a barrier to getting this kind of life insurance because your insurer doesn’t need to know anything about your health.

When it comes to paying out, different over 50 policies will have different rules. For example, you might need to have your policy for a certain amount of time before it’ll pay out if you die. You should check the details of any over 50 policy to understand exactly when and what it pays out for.

With us, if you die for any reason after the first 12 months of having the policy, we’ll pay out the full cover amount as a lump sum. This includes dying from cancer or anything related, even if the original cancer was from a time before you had cover. We’ll also pay out the full cover amount if you die because of an accident within the first 12 months. 

However, it can be different if you die and you’ve had your policy for less than 12 months. For example, if you buy our over 50 life insurance and die (from something that wasn’t an accident) before you’ve had the policy for a year, we won’t pay out the full cover amount. But we will pay a sum that’s equal to any premiums that have already been paid.

Payouts are no different if you’re in remission from cancer and then later die from it or something cancer related. The policy will still pay out if the claim meets your insurer’s requirements.

For example, once you’ve had your over 50 life insurance policy with us for one year, you’re covered if you die from natural causes or any other reason. And natural causes include any pre-existing health conditions like cancer.  So, if you’re in remission and then later die from cancer, and you’ve had your over 50 policy with us for over 12 months, we’ll pay out the full cover amount.

We’ve partnered with Macmillan Cancer Support to give people with our life insurance, critical illness cover, or income protection easy access to quick and effective help if they’re living with cancer.

As one of the largest UK cancer charities, Macmillan offers emotional, medical, and financial support for people whose lives are affected by cancer. And our customer team can point you in the right direction to find the warm helping hand you need.

Macmillan has also supported the training of our claims staff, so they’re equipped to handle conversations with customers affected by cancer

Find out more about our partnership with Macmillan Cancer Support.