How can you love your lungs this June?

Love Your Lungs Week is just how it sounds, a week to pay extra attention to what your lungs do and caring for them as best you can, all whilst raising awareness for lung health. 

Somebody in the UK dies from lung disease every 5 minutes, with 100,000 deaths each year. 

Lung conditions are the third most common causes of death within the UK, with lung conditions affecting over 10 million people in the UK alone. Lung disease is an umbrella term for many different things, ranging from asthma to tuberculosis to lung cancer. Over the past two years, the number of people experiencing lung conditions increased. The strain on the NHS because of COVID didn’t make it easy for people to seek the help or treatment that they needed. This is where awareness days such as these can help. 

Love Your Lungs week raises awareness of the symptoms a person can look out for to spot early signs of a condition, as well as raising funds for treatment and offering support networks to those who have a lung condition or know somebody who does.

A lot of the most common lung conditions can be linked to pollution and the lack of clean air, which is why in 2022 the focus of #LoveYourLungs is to fight for clean air, #ClearTheAir. It might seem easier said than done, but even things such as walking down quieter streets instead of main roads or avoiding being around cigarette smoke can start to make a difference. Though air pollution isn’t the cause of these conditions, it certainly can have an impact on existing conditions or have a negative effect on the development of a child’s lungs.

Smoking and e-cigarettes

One thing which impacts your lungs and your protection insurance is smoking. Smoking on its own shouldn’t cause an insurer to decline your application, but they will want some details and will increase the price of your policy. The insurer will also consider if this makes any medical conditions that you have worse, and then might start to look at your application more closely. 

Although using an e-cigarette isn’t always thought of as smoking, most insurers will still raise the premium of your policy if you use one. There are however some insurers who won’t increase the price. This is the same for those who might smoke a cigar on special occasions, some insurers are fine with this and others will class you as a full smoker.

Access to insurance

With there being so many different lung conditions, it’s almost impossible to say for definite what insurance terms you might be offered. For less severe conditions such as mild asthma, the insurer might offer you terms for life insurance, critical illness cover and income protection with no price increase or exclusions.

For more severe conditions, the insurer might look at increasing the premium or adding an exclusion. In some cases it might be that we have to look into a specialist insurer or look at other options which still suit your needs. 

Case Studies

• A man in his late 20s came to us needing life insurance to cover their mortgage. He had been diagnosed with asthma as a child and has had recent symptoms which are controlled with inhalers. We arranged a life insurance policy for him and his partner, covering them for just over £103,000 for 32 years, with a monthly premium of less than £8.
  
  
• A woman in her late 40s came to us needing life insurance to cover funeral costs. She had been diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), she was physically fit and didn’t need any type of medication to control this. She now has a life insurance policy of £10,000 for less than £14 per month.
  
  
• A man approaching 50 needing life insurance to protect his mortgage. He had been diagnosed with emphysema a few years before coming to us, but had no treatment for this because he is asymptomatic. He had also had a history of alcohol abuse and suicide attempts. There were also another couple of health conditions for the insurer to consider when assessing this application. We arranged a life insurance policy covering him for £149,000 for 17 years, with a monthly premium of just over £54.
  
  

If you have a lung condition and are interested in what options might be available to you, our advisers are on hand to help. We have a wide range of clients and are able to assist in many situations.

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