In June last year, Michelle Rendle woke up in the middle of the night to discover her husband John, 39, was having a seizure.
It was a shock to both of them: the father of two had never experienced anything like it and was otherwise in good shape; He liked to play golf and soccer.
The seizure lasted 15 minutes and John was rushed to Darent Valley Hospital in Dartford. He spent a week there and for the next five months he had consultations and MRIs to determine what was wrong.
It wasn’t until November that John discovered it was cancer. A biopsy confirmed that he had a grade two astrocytoma, a type of brain tumor.
Michelle Rendle woke up in the middle of the night to discover her husband John, 39, was having a seizure. They are parents of Oliver, five years old, and his daughter Emilia, three years old.
“I hadn’t had any headaches,” says John, who works in IT solutions for a printer and copier company. ‘Doctors say he could have been there for years. We had no idea.
A craniotomy performed in December to remove more than half of the tumor revealed it had progressed to grade three, meaning it was growing rapidly. ‘You don’t expect your husband to get brain cancer out of the blue at such a young age. It’s hard to accept,” says Michelle, 37.
John has started working from home. No time frame has been set for his condition, but she has been told it shortens his life.
The couple, who celebrated their eighth wedding anniversary last month, were smart enough to each take out a life and critical illness insurance policy, as well as a joint life insurance policy when they first took out a mortgage 11 years ago. These would protect the rest of the couple and the couple’s children, Oliver, five, and Emilia, three, in case they became seriously ill or died.
Payment rates for serious illness claims are typically high, with providers paying 91.6 per cent of new claims in 2022, averaging £66,296, according to the latest data available from the Association of British Insurers.
John expected to receive a lump sum of £25,000 from his critical illness cover with Zurich. He hoped to use this to create memories with his wife and children while he was still well enough. In November, after his diagnosis, he sent his claim to Zurich.
But Zurich’s response to the claim four months later shocked him. He informed her that both his life and critical illness insurance policy and his joint life insurance policy with Michelle would be canceled and premiums refunded.
That would mean John would receive no critical illness payout and the joint policy would not pay the couple’s £150,000 mortgage if he died.
The insurer said this was because there were differences in the information provided by John when he applied for the insurance and that provided by his GP about his health. She said she would have denied all coverage if she had known all the information before the policies were issued.
The couple had policies in place for more than a decade and had previously worked with insurer Royal London. When their Royal London policy came up for renewal in January last year, they decided to switch to Zurich to get cheaper premiums and a higher sum insured on the life insurance policy.
But in February, John became dizzy. Without thinking, he didn’t go to the doctor. When Zurich wrote to John to confirm the policies and ask him to notify her of any changes, he didn’t think to mention it.
John had a second dizzy spell at work on May 5, four days after the policy went into effect. This time he did go to the doctor; He mentioned this dizziness and the one in February. The doctor wrote in his notes that he had experienced “intermittent” dizziness. John claims that he only told the doctor about the two episodes. Blood tests were ordered, which came back normal.
Zurich denied the claim, claiming that John had not disclosed the “intermittent” episodes of dizziness.
His GP has since written to Zurich to clarify that John only had “strange dizziness” but did not indicate how many “strange” meant. The GP also said that he had no symptoms suggesting a brain tumor at the time of that appointment. King’s College Hospital, to which John had been referred after the seizure, also wrote to the insurance company to say that the dizziness is non-specific and does not suggest a brain tumour. But Zurich has not reset John’s policy, nor his and Michelle’s.
John has been receiving treatment for his brain tumor. He underwent six weeks of radiotherapy at Maidstone Hospital and last month he took his first five-day chemotherapy treatment, which he will have to repeat every month for a year.
John and Michelle, who celebrated their eighth wedding anniversary last month, are one of the few young couples who have a critical illness and a life insurance policy in place.
John also had a third surgery on Christmas Day after brain fluid began leaking from his stitches following the craniotomy.
He says: ‘It’s difficult. I have two small children and I am very emotional. The insurance issue has just added weight. I feel like the world is on my shoulders.’
Michelle, a stay-at-home mother who would be left raising two children and paying a substantial mortgage, says, “We don’t know how long he’ll be okay.”
John adds, “We want to make memories with the kids while I’m here, in case there comes a time when I can’t work.”
Childhood best friend Damien Clarkson has been raising money for the Rendle family through GoFundMe. Some £24,287 has been donated so far.
A Zurich spokesperson said: “We are very sorry for the difficult circumstances Mr. Rendle and his family are experiencing. From the information provided, we know that Mr. Rendle had ongoing and intermittent neurological symptoms since at least February 2023 and had experienced multiple episodes.
‘Although these incidents occurred after the application was submitted, this should have been reported to us before the application went live. We make clear to clients in several documents about their obligations to notify us of any changes in their health.
‘If we had known about the symptoms, which were subsequently investigated by his GP, we would have postponed cover to allow time for investigations to be carried out and see how the symptoms developed.
“Because Mr. Rendle did not inform us of these conditions before coverage began, unfortunately his claim was denied and Zurich refunded him any premiums paid over the course of the policy.”
Dean Dunham, consumer lawyer at the Mail, says: ‘I always tell consumers that if an insurance provider can avoid a claim, they usually will, especially in the case of health insurance.
“I strongly advise consumers to take an overly cautious approach and disclose everything, including symptoms experienced and all medical appointments attended, before changing or purchasing a new health insurance policy.”
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