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Life and Critical Illness Insurance. Fully disclose your medical history when you apply. You have been warned! Page 2

Secondly, the Doctor clearly did not communicate the potential seriousness

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of Mr P's referral to the dermatologist. If at the time the application was completed, Mr P did not know it was serious and the representative said the referral question related only to serious conditions, Mr P can hardly be blamed for not disclosing the information.

In our view, on the basis of the information provided to us, Mr P is blameless. The central error lies at the feet of Standard Life's representative. He gave incorrect guidance on what the central question was asking for. Standard Life should pay out.

The vital lesson to be learnt

Always carefully read each question on an insurance application form - and answer the question ACCURATELY and FULLY. If you don't, the insurance company can rightfully claim that you mislead them by omission. Don't be tempted into thinking that by omitting some information, your premiums will be lower - well yes they might, but that's false economy if it later results in your claim being rejected.

We hope Mr P will get his payout as circumstances beyond his control clearly mislead him. He acted honestly. He deserves his payout and our best wishes.

However, those applicants who deliberately withhold information from their insurer do not.

Postscript : Standard Life has reported that they refuse 5% of all Critical Illness claims due to non-disclosure. Legal & General is much tougher - they say they reject 16%.

Did you Know?
According to the Council of Mortgage Lenders, last year over 200,000 homes in the London area were financed by an interest only mortgage without a repayment vehicle being in place. Of these, 60,900 buyers were first-timers.

We cannot find national figures for the total number of homebuyers with interest only mortgages. However, the market share for interest-only mortgages has been running between 10 and 20% over the past 10 years.

Now it looks as if mortgage brokers have been arranging more than half of these interest only mortgages. So when these mortgages reach maturity, if the mortgage holder hasn't enough cash to repay the mortgage debt, many of these brokers could be up with a claim for miss-selling.

Did you Know?
According to Land Registry figures, there has been a huge increase in the number homes sold for £1m plus. Despite what you'd expect, this hasn't caused the scramble for business you'd expect from lenders. Many of them are exercising caution when it comes to the well-heeled mortgage seeker. Surprisingly, the best deals go to the smaller borrower. It seem as if lenders would prefer to lend 10 borrowers £150,000 each rather than one loan of £1.5m, in order to spread the risk.

It is, however, beginning to get easier to get mortgage quotes for high value homes. Recent figures from the Land Registry show a massive increase in the sales of million pound plus properties.

Today's Tip
Don't buy direct from a Life Insurance Company or even your bank, until you have received at least two quotes from specialist life insurance brokers. That way you're bound to get a great deal for your life insurance policies .