Cancer survivor can't get life assurance

Rossouw is taking part in a bid by advocacy group Campaigning for Cancer to educate people about the costs of cancer, including the fine print in insurance contracts and the difficulty of getting insurance as a cancer survivor. Rossouw says he cannot insure his businesses for losses they might sustain if he has an accidental death.

He also wants a lump sum payment for his children in the event of his accidental death. Rossouw thought he would qualify for life assurance after five years without cancer.

"I was aiming for five. Then I got their 'Sorry you can't get it'. It's a big, big frustration," he said.

Usually people qualify for life assurance after they have been in remission for three years, according to Campaigning for Cancer's chief executive Lauren Pretorius. But, she said, it depends on the type of cancer and the applicant's chances of survival.

The organisation is urging life insurance companies to make it easier for cancer survivors to get insurance. "Three decades ago cancer was a death sentence. Now people live after their treatment," she says.

Education, information important

And the group is trying to educate people about the medical aid, hospital insurance and gap-cover products they can buy.

She said: "Over the years, [our organisation] has experienced a number of instances where health consumers make decisions on medical scheme membership, gap cover and life assurance cover without knowing what the actual cover entails and how a cancer diagnosis will affect these types of insurance."

She said people read the fine print of insurance policies only when they are ill. She said some gap cover products that cover medical aid scheme shortfalls do not cover cancer. And medical aids don't write a blank cheque for cancer treatment either.

"Many schemes provide limited or no funding for certain cancer treatments, including special medicines," she said, adding that some of the new cancer drugs are extremely expensive.

"Biologics are new medicines that target specific disease cells but are hugely expensive. The cost of newer medicines not covered by medical aids can range from R100 000 to half a million rand," said Pretorius.

"Newer life saving medicines do not have generic alternatives either," she added.

She said people had to be informed about what their medical aids or insurance policies covered.

Pieter Coetzee, spokesman for The Association for Savings and Investment SA, said he could not comment on a specific case but urged people to apply for life assurance while they were healthy.

"People forget one important aspect of insurance: one can only be insured against unexpected events. Once one is sick, it might be too late and it serves little purpose to then blame the insurers," he said.

Source: The Times via I-Net Bridge