Life insurance for mortgage with ill health?

Hi, I’m sure there’s some knowledge here from the good folk of STW…

After many years of renting me and my wife are looking to buy next year as we’ve got a good sized deposit together.

However, I’ve just got early retirement due to ill health, and we were planning to use that as part of our income for the mortgage.

It just struck that I might not actually be able to get a mortgage (be a joint partner on it) as I don’t know if I’ll be able to get life insurance for it with my range of health issues (none are the terminal type). I’ve/we’ve not had life insurance since the last one we had linked to a mortgage stopped many years back when we sold that house and began renting. I was in good health and working then.

It’d obviously reduce the amount we could borrow if it has to be solely in my wife’s name, even though she has a good income.

Plenty of options for life insurance with pre existing conditions. Assuming they’re not hugely life shortening then it won’t be problem

(Source: me who’s spent most of my career pricing life insurance)

Is life insurance compulsory for a mortgage? I remember it being pushed hard when I took out my first mortgage but not even mentioned since.

Jam-bo life insurance isn’t compulsory for a mortgage. I had previously assumed it was but was incorrect.

Health stuff isn’t specifically life shortening, but definitely activity limiting; osteoarthritis in knees and wrists, CFS/ME, hearing, some cognitive issues.

Yeh I thought life insurance it was compulsory as it seemed to be in the past, but apparently only building insurance is.

Though Google says life insurance may be a precondition of a getting mortgage from many lenders. Basically they can’t force you to buy it from them like they did in the past, but they can require you to have some form of life insurance if you want to lend money from them.

We just had the decreasing cover in the past so it just covered what was left on the mortgage.

My pension is local government and index linked, so probably more secure of an income than an actual job.

Life insurance isn’t always needed for a mortgage, I know as I don’t have it and have definitely had a mortgage for the last 29 years.