Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD) & Life Insurance

Living with polycystic kidney disease can lead people to feel uncertain about what insurances they can and can’t have. We are here to give you a clear insight into potential terms you will see for life insurance.

When you speak with us our advisers will ask you:

• When were you diagnosed with PKD?
• What symptoms do you experience?
• Is it just your kidney or other organs that are affected?
• Do you need to take any medications?
• Do you need to have kidney dialysis treatment?
• Have you needed a kidney transplant?

When you have polycystic kidney disease it is quite likely that you will be offered non-standard terms for life insurance. This means that the insurer is going to increase the policy premiums due to your health.

This is never nice to hear but life insurance is usually really cheap and these increases are often nowhere near as high as people think they will be.

There are some insurers that will unfortunately not be able to offer you life insurance, so it is essential that the right insurer is picked for you from the start. We will do this for you.

The cost of your life insurance and best insurer for you will really depend upon your current kidney function readings. If you can have your latest eGFR reading to hand when you speak with us, that will mean we can get a stronger indication of what options you might have for life insurance.

Our award winning advisers are to make sure that your life insurance policy is placed with the best insurer for you.

Critical illness cover pays out a cash lump sum of money, if you are diagnosed with a medical condition that is listed in the insurer’s claims set e.g. cancer, heart attack, stroke.

At the moment there are no options for critical illness cover in the standard insurance market.

There are some specialist options that you can look at and you might be covered by this kind of insurance through your employer. These options will come with exclusions and it’s important to make sure that you know how your PKD can alter what you can and cannot claim on.

Income protection pays you a replacement of your monthly income, if you are unable to work due to ill health.

Income protection policies are designed to potentially pay your income right up to your retirement age, but when you have PKD you are quite likely to find that you are offered a different option.

If you are able to access income protection you are quite likely to find that you are able to arrange a policy that will pay out for a maximum 2 years, for every successful claim. You will also find that the policy will probably exclude any claims relating to your PKD.

You might find that your employer offers income protection as an employee benefit to you. This option can be really beneficial to you as this policy type can often cover claims relating to pre-existing conditions. It’s always a good idea to have a good look at the terms and conditions of the insurance policies that are offered by your employer, to check for things like this.

Our expert advisers are here to make sure that you get the best insurance policy to protect your income.

Are you going on holiday and finding it hard to get travel insurance? We have teamed up with a broker that can help, you can find their details on our travel insurance page.