Can you remember each time you visited a doctor in the past ten years? If you’re anything like me, you’ll have visited your GP on countless occasions worrying about what proved to be insignificant conditions.

But if you have life or critical-illness cover and you forgot to disclose that embarrassing episode when you thought a bunion was something more serious, your policy may be worthless. Shamelessly, insurers reject about one in five critical-illness claims every year for so-called “nondisclosure”, sometimes even if the forgotten episode was insignificant or not even related to the claim.

Insurers have been disgracefully slow in confronting this appalling conduct. This level of penny-pinching undermines the credibility of every insurer and causes misery for policyholders, often at very sensitive times.

At Times Money we have been inundated with tragic stories from readers who have suffered at the hands of heartless insurers. In many cases, the companies involved have denied claims on a technicality, leaving relatives in serious financial difficulty when a family member dies or become seriously ill.

Thankfully, Norwich Union, one of the worst offenders, is finally beginning to act and is writing to 5,000 policyholders, asking them to remember any details that they may have left off their applications. But that is not nearly enough. For a start, the company has almost two million customers with protection cover and it must engage them all in this process as soon as possible.

Of course, every customer has an obligation to be completely honest, and a second chance at disclosure is welcome, but Norwich Union must also examine its own conduct.

Nondisclosure should not be used as a blanket excuse for turning down claims. If a policyholder has failed inadvertently to reveal every detail of his or her medical history and the omission was unconnected to the cause of death or illness, the claim should still be paid. Insurers also have a responsibility at the point of sale to outline clearly the common conditions, such as asthma, that are excluded and to make every question that they ask completely unambiguous.

Rate rise could backfire on Bank after delayed reaction

Before commenting on the Bank of England raising interest rates for the fifth time in less than 12 months, I must declare an interest: I have a variable-rate mortgage.

This means that I have suffered considerable financial pain as my repayments have jumped ever higher. The statistics, however, suggest that I am no longer representative of the homeowning population, with most new borrowers sheltering under the protection of fixed-rate deals. Over the past 18 months almost 70 per cent of new mortgages have been on fixed rates, compared with an average of about 40 per cent since 1993. In total, almost half of all outstanding mortgage debt is now on fixed rates, up from 35 per cent in 2003 and about 10 per cent in the late 1980s at the peak of the last housing boom.

This restructuring of the mortgage market will soon result in a rude financial awakening for many homeowners and, perversely, could force borrowing costs even higher. With the vast majority of fixed-rate mortgages lasting only two or three years, borrowers coming to the end of their deals between now and next autumn face the prospect of their monthly repayments jumping by as much as a third. This will be a massive financial shock for hundreds of thousands of families already struggling to make ends meet.

Meanwhile, the very popularity of fixed-rate deals means that it takes longer than ever for movements in the base rate to affect the real economy – a frustration for the Bank of England that neatly explains the indefatigable strength of consumer spending and the housing market over the past year.

The risk is that the Bank of England, in its determination to stamp out inflation, may consider this temporary resilience in the economy as justification for increasing the cost of borrowing more than is really necessary, triggering an avoidable debt crisis and possibly even a house price crash.

Thankfully, though, this scenario is avoidable, but the Bank must sit on its hands for a while and give the rates rises it has already implemented a chance to work.

Now watchdog turns on mortgage brokers and lenders

Another week, another report from the chief City watchdog trying to right the wrongs of the financial services industry. This time it was mortgage brokers and lenders under the spotlight. The Financial Services Authority’s conclusion: there are still widespread problems in the way that home loans are sold to the most vulnerable borrowers – those with poor credit histories.

The watchdog found that some brokers were advising these unfortunate consumers to remortgage without checking whether this would trigger an early repayment charge from their existing lenders. I would love to believe that such oversights were mere incompetence. Sadly, however, the truth is probably more sinister. These “sub-prime” mortgages offer fat commissions up to 1.5 per cent of the value of the loan – obviously a temptation too far for some brokers.

The FSA is planning to take “enforcement action” against the worst offenders. Amazingly, however, it refuses to name and shame them, which must infuriate the industry’s many honest intermediaries.