Portugal Moves to Shield Survivors from Mortgage Insurance Surcharges

Many foreigners who plan to buy property in Portugal discover only at the last minute that local banks bundle every mortgage with a life-insurance policy. Until now, that step could resurrect long-past medical struggles, sending premiums sky-high or even blocking a loan. Lisbon’s new drive to regulate the direito ao esquecimento—the “right to be forgotten” for credit and insurance—aims to change that landscape before the end of 2025. The upcoming rules will prevent lenders and insurers from digging into old cancer files or other serious illnesses once specific time limits have elapsed, bringing Portugal closer to French and Spanish practice while still trying to calm industry fears about higher risk.

Why this matters when you sit across the bank manager

For many expats, the biggest purchase after the residency visa is a home financed by a Portuguese mortgage, and that loan routinely requires life cover issued locally. Under today’s informal practices, insurers can—and often do—ask for decades of medical details. A clean bill of health is rewarded with standard premiums; survivors of illness face hefty surcharges or refusals. The forthcoming regulation will forbid that approach after 10 years of remission, or 5 years if recovery occurred before turning 21, cutting one of the most opaque hurdles foreigners meet when moving their credit history to Portugal. Consumer group DECO says this could save some families "thousands of euros over the lifetime of a typical €250,000 mortgage".

From headline law to missing manual: Portugal’s long detour

The national parliament enshrined the direito ao esquecimento in Law 75/2021, effective January 2022. Yet nearly three years later, banks and insurers still operate without a detailed rulebook because the government never issued the promised decree. That gap has triggered formal complaints to the Ombudswoman, with patient associations alleging ongoing discrimination. The Ministry of Youth and Modernisation now leads a task-force that includes the Treasury, Health authorities and the insurance supervisor ASF. Draft rules are scheduled to enter public consultation in January 2025, with a final version promised “no later than December,” according to an internal briefing seen by this newsroom.

What questions will disappear from application forms?

Under the draft, companies may not seek, store or use information about a “risk already mitigated or overcome.” Concretely, once the remission clocks above have run out, applicants can lawfully answer “No” when asked about past cancer, HIV, or other listed conditions. The ASF has already published Norma 12/2024-R telling insurers to purge such data in policies tied to housing or consumer loans. Similar guidance from the Banco de Portugal for lenders is still missing, leaving a regulatory asymmetry that advocacy groups call “a glaring loophole.”

Industry unease meets patient activism

Executives at the Associação Portuguesa de Seguradores caution that the decree arrives while an overarching National Access Agreement—meant to balance consumer rights with actuarial fairness—remains unsigned. They warn of higher aggregate claims feeding into premiums for the broader pool. On the other side, cancer-survivor NGOs argue that French experience shows little impact on solvency and that discrimination costs society more. Both camps agree on one point: clear thresholds and an official “grelha de referência” are essential to avoid case-by-case disputes.

Lessons across the border

France pioneered a similar regime with its AERAS Convention, trimming the look-back period to 8 years in 2022 and 5 years from 2025. Early studies cited by the French insurance federation found no statistically significant spike in default rates. Spain, meanwhile, framed the right mainly as a data-protection measure, yet insurers there also phase out medical questionnaires after a set period. Brussels has urged every EU member to adopt comparable guarantees by 2025, making Portugal’s delay increasingly conspicuous in continental rankings.

Countdown to 2026: what expats should track

If the timetable holds, new Portuguese contracts issued from 2026 will carry automatic non-disclosure for qualifying illnesses, while existing borrowers may request policy revisions. Watch for three milestones: publication of the draft decree in January, a 60-day consultation led by ASF and the Health Ministry, and the signature of the cross-industry Access Agreement, which will spell out premium limits. Until then, advisers suggest documenting remission dates and keeping copies of any correspondence where insurers cite health history—material that could support compensation claims once the law finally gains teeth.