Life insurance/ critical illness cover etc

[RightMover]

Does anyone know much about life insurance/ critical illness cover - particularly in relation to what constitutes an existing condition?
A broker is currently looking into this for us and she's freaked me out a bit!
We completed an online health and lifestyle questionnaire- I put on mine that my gp referred me for a mammogram 2 years ago because I was having some discomfort in my armpit, mammogram was thank god completely fine and it was put down as likely to be hormonal, no other cause was found. Broker says an insurance company will probably put in a clause that says they wouldn't pay out on any claim made relating to breast issues - which seems a bit unreasonable given that everything was absolutely fine. She pretty much said that anything we had seen a GP about would need to be disclosed because if we made a claim the insurance company would access our medical records. We have insurance at the moment but I don't have anything that I would consider a long term existing condition so I haven't told them about any tests etc I've had- is this something we have to do just in case we ever have to claim??
I hope I'm making sense, I'm just wondering if anyone has any experience or knowledge with this?

I used to assess life insurance and CI claims.

Firstly a one off breast lump a couple of years ago is very unlikely to lead to a breast cancer exclusion on a CI policy. The insurer may request your medical records from your GP to confirm what investigations were carried out and whether a diagnosis was made (e.g fibroadenoma), but from what you have said it's unlikely it would affect an underwriting decision by itself.

Application forms will have different types of question e.g.

• have you EVER had a heart attack or stroke

-in the last 5 YEARS have you had a breast lump -in the last 12 MONTHS have you had any hospital referrals

You need to answer truthfully, so be mindful of time periods specified in the question.

If you need to make a claim then the insurer will need to access parts of your medical records to confirm the diagnosis and possibly to confirm that you were not experiencing any symptoms prior to taking out the policy, or to confirm that you did not misrepresent any information on your application form. They will not access all of your medical records just because you make a claim, and will not go on a fishing expedition.

@Violetroselily Thank you so much for your very detailed reply, much appreciated.