Declaring a smoker on mortgage protection policy

[LifeInAHamsterWheel]

Sorry for such a long post but I just wanted to give as much detail as possible. DH and I got our mortgage many years ago and now have 6 years remaining. DH has smoked on and off since he was 13. When we took out the mortgage he had been off the cigarettes for a few years. Since then he has started and quit several times. He's been smoking again for about 3 years now. The other day I got a document from the life insurance company just stating the overview of the policy for the coming year. It lists our names, DOBs and smoking status. Both non-smoker. When I saw this I immediately thought we'd better tell them that DH is now a smoker. I contacted our broker and he's sent me a form we both need to fill in and said he'll take it from there. DH is saying I shouldn't have said anything! But surely it would invalidate the policy even if his death was nothing to do with smoking? If they found out he was a smoker and we hadn't disclosed it, they wouldn't pay out? We've never got this document before, I'm not sure if it's because we recently took out pension products from the same company and it's triggered documents being sent or if they've just started to send out these updates but I would have spotted it if I'd seen it in previous years and disclosed. We haven't deliberately deceived them. I've never been a smoker. Will we now have a huge problem because of this?

Yeah I think you did the right thing to make sure the policy would pay out in the event of his death. The premium will go up now, to account for the increased risk. But if you only have 6 years left on it, then your mortgage will be tiny in comparison with when you took the policy out. Is the policy you currently have decreaseing term? (the amount it would pay out reduces each year in line with the expected reduction on the balance of your mortgage)

If so, I'd do a price comparison on money supermarket to see how much a new life insurance policy (declaring the smoking) would cost for the amount you need to cover the remaining mortgage you have now

The first thing I would say is that telling the truth is the right thing to do, purely on moral grounds.

I work in life insurance although this isn't particularly my area, but it is going to come down to underwriting practice. (I know when we used to offer better annuity rates for smokers, we would check with the GP that applicants had a history of smoking, but the underwriting considerations are very different to your product). Unless your cover is unusually large (something like £1m+) they might just take your husband's word for it that he has started smoking, and they might not even change the premium. If you didn't disclose it and he died, that might be a point where they do some checks (eg with GP for undisclosed medical conditions, but I don't know whether they would ask about smoking). If he got lung cancer (for example) they might ask more questions! If they decided you had lied in taking out cover or when accepting a renewal, they could refuse to pay out.

Thanks. Absolutely will be telling the truth and have, we just never thought to update anyone whenever he started/stopped smoking. Only a small payout at this stage, enough to cover the balance on the mortgage and a small amount extra. And hopefully it won't be needed at all!