Haven’t really started looking into life insurance in UK, but need to. Do I need to give consideration to any exclusions based on outdoor sports – do life insurance companies normally exclude bicycle racing, or anything like that? Or is it (as in previous country I purchased life insurance in) generally only excluded if you are doing professional sports or anything considered “extreme”?

You will have to check the exclusions on the policy and get one that covers you for what you need. It may cost a little more, but you don’t want your family to have to deal with your death and the claim being excluded.

@More – completely agree. My question was more – is there any general standard regarding this in UK policies? Or put another way – any insurers people could recommend, which don’t have these exclusions?

^ This. Be open about what you do. No point paying for the insurance if it doesn’t afford you the correct cover.

Used to do mountaineering, Alps trips, 4000m+ climbs etc and summit via BMC placed cover for me. You’ll be fine, just rack your brain with your hobbies and tell your insurer.

EDIT: No, no such thing as a ‘standard’ cover. Check each policy for it’s exclusions.

EDIT: Underwriter was Aviva for our insurance.

My old policy used to exclude professional sport, but not amateur.

“Whats your definition of professional”
“Do you take a salary for doing it”
“No”
“Amateur then”

Getting that in writing was a whole different battle. But ultimately saved me about 300 quid a year. Until i started getting paid.

Other policies have excluded all competitive sport.
So i’m probably ok there too as i am now far from competitive. 😳

You really have to check the policy line by line, then when you are sure which sentences apply, ring them up to check their definitions of the particular words. As they quite often aren’t exactly what the dictionary says the definition is.

Be prepared to argue or negotiate a bit. I seem to remember getting life cover for my wife was a problem as she has cerebral palsy, and they tried to exclude all accidents using a standard “computer says no” exclusion.

I just rewrote a proper condition excluding any accidental death directly arising from her condition, they accepted it and we took the policy out with them. Think that was Aviva as well.