Worth getting cancer coverage with mortgage life insurance?

[ExpatScot]

Hi all,

We're hoping to buy a cheap manshon in the near future and have applied for mortgages with a couple of banks. As most of you know, they seem to require you to get group life insurance when you buy a place and we're just wondering if we should go for the most basic insurance or a slightly more expensive one which has cancer coverage. I'm in my mid-forties, so my cancer risk is only gonna rise in the next couple of decades.

Any thoughts on this out there? Is it worth paying a couple of extra thousand a month for peace of mind or is it money down the toilet?

Cheers

[Wales4rugbyWC23]

Hi all,

We're hoping to buy a cheap manshon in the near future and have applied for mortgages with a couple of banks. As most of you know, they seem to require you to get group life insurance when you buy a place and we're just wondering if we should go for the most basic insurance or a slightly more expensive one which has cancer coverage. I'm in my mid-forties, so my cancer risk is only gonna rise in the next couple of decades.

Any thoughts on this out there? Is it worth paying a couple of extra thousand a month for peace of mind or is it money down the toilet?

Cheers

Life insurance, banks most of the time give it to you free. SMBC gave it to me. Critical illness insurance which is about 0.3% added to my interest rate gets you peace of mind.

[RetireJapan]

Hi all,

We're hoping to buy a cheap manshon in the near future and have applied for mortgages with a couple of banks. As most of you know, they seem to require you to get group life insurance when you buy a place and we're just wondering if we should go for the most basic insurance or a slightly more expensive one which has cancer coverage. I'm in my mid-forties, so my cancer risk is only gonna rise in the next couple of decades.

Any thoughts on this out there? Is it worth paying a couple of extra thousand a month for peace of mind or is it money down the toilet?

Cheers

Life insurance, banks most of the time give it to you free. SMBC gave it to me. Critical illness insurance which is about 0.3% added to my interest rate gets you peace of mind.

I got the cancer clause for free as well (possibly because I was under 40 when we took out the mortgage).

[ExpatScot]

Thanks for the advice all, we'll probably get it as it's not overly expensive.

[adamu]

Some things to consider: would it be cheaper to buy separately? How much is the higher rate going to cost you over the span of the mortgage?

(Don't have any experience with this personally)

[ExpatScot]

Some things to consider: would it be cheaper to buy separately? How much is the higher rate going to cost you over the span of the mortgage?

(Don't have any experience with this personally)

It looks like it'll be about ¥14,000 a year, so not too expensive, although over 30 years it'll add up. I'm just thinking with me being on the wrong side of 40 and with my Scottish DNA it might give us some peace of mind as we get older.

[Beaglehound]

It’s not a straightforward call. My Japanese missus is interested in supplemental health insurance but it’s not super cheap (we are in our 50s) and there are a myriad of options which are not always clear. My feeling is that as medical costs here are not ruinous (expensive but not ruinous) and we have no idea what afflictions we may come down with, it’s better to save on insurance premiums and notionally ‘self-insure’. But I see the other argument too.

[Nancy]

Hi, I don't remember the details, and don't know the cost (It might have been expensive) but we had a mortgage insurance when we had our mortgage. The idea was that if for some reason (mostly medical I think) for not being able to pay the mortgage, then the insurance would pay it. It was really nice to have, although we didn't need it, and our mortgage was of a short duration. As far as I remember, it could be for any cause.

[ExpatScot]

It’s case by case.
I would
1) take the insurance terms offered by bank
2) go to your insurance broker or any of the ones in a nearby shopping mall and get an offer to compare costs and benefits.

What I would deem important to check is really the conditions after the one time payment. The bank’s interest is just to make sure they get paid back, so the cancer insurance may be geared mostly to pay off the loan for you.
It may or may not include an extra payment for your medical costs or continuous regular payments or cover for future medical costs.
If you say the condo is not expensive, the costs of cancer may be more critical to cover rather than the mortgage payments.

Some good points here, thanks.