A fresh moratorium can restart the clock on recent conditions, which is the risk switching carries unless you move on a continued basis.

What actually happens

Under moratorium underwriting you make no medical declaration, but conditions you had symptoms, treatment, advice or medication for in a defined recent period — commonly the last five years — are not covered until you have gone a set time, often two continuous years, without any of those for that condition. It is a rolling test that quietly brings past conditions back into cover as time passes.

The danger at a switch is that a new insurer's moratorium can reset that clock. A condition that was almost through its symptom-free period on your old policy may have to serve it again from scratch on the new one, leaving you temporarily without cover for something that was about to be covered. That is the trap people fall into when they switch on a fresh moratorium purely to save money.

The way round it is to switch on continued personal medical exclusions instead, so the new insurer carries your existing position across rather than reopening the moratorium. Where that is not available, it is worth mapping exactly which conditions are mid-way through their symptom-free period before you move, so you know what you would be giving up.

None of this changes the treatment of chronic conditions, which every insurer excludes regardless of underwriting basis. The moratorium question is about acute conditions with a recent history, and getting the switch basis right is what keeps their progress toward cover from being wiped out.

Questions to put to the insurer or broker

  • If I switch on a fresh moratorium, which of my conditions would restart their symptom-free period?
  • Can I move on a continued basis instead so nothing resets?
  • Which conditions are closest to becoming covered, and what would a reset cost me?

Related questions

What a switch cannot change

Switching insurer or adjusting cover changes the price, not your medical history. A condition you already have stays excluded when you move — carried across as it stands on continued personal medical exclusions, re-declared under full medical underwriting, or parked under a fresh moratorium. Chronic conditions are excluded by every insurer whose wording we hold, and renewal terms change each year, so read the document you are actually offered before you commit.

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