Norwich: Veronika Guardi pays mortgage with life insurance payout

“My husband will not have to sell the house or ever worry about paying a mortgage on top of everything else that comes with losing his wife and mother of his children. He is my rock – I know it has been the worst few months of his life and it will be an extremely difficult time for him and the kids. It’s just one less thing to worry about.”

These are the words of fashion designer Veronika Guardi, 33, as she describes the life-changing moment she paid off the mortgage on her Norwich home – but perhaps not for the reason you’d expect.

Only a few months before, she had been diagnosed with incurable bladder cancer and was given 12 months to live. 

Since then she’s been determined to share her story in the hope it might help others too.

“Nobody really talks about money when it comes to cancer,” she says, “[but] I wish there was more information and guidance on it.”

Veronika and her husband, Thomas, with their two boys (Image: Veronika Guardi)

Veronika and her husband, Thomas, who was born in Norfolk, had bought their city-centre property only three years before, moving from one Golden Triangle home to another just two streets away. With two growing boys, now aged six and two, she says they wanted a space to grow into.

“We stretched ourselves like everyone else does to get it with a big mortgage – without knowing what life was going to throw at us,” she says, but after the sale went through, she kept getting calls from her estate agent, Michael, trying to encourage her to take out life insurance.

“He emailed me, called me, sent me letters, voicemails, text messages, everything you could possibly imagine,” she laughs. Eventually she gave in and asked him to arrange a policy on her behalf.

“I was doing this literally on the phone while I was on the way to London to meet a client. I was juggling so many things that I couldn’t find time for important things for me – I was just spread too thin.”

Veronika says they bought their Golden Triangle home as a fixer upper (Image: Veronika Guardi)

She didn’t think very much of it, she says, and agreed to take out life insurance to cover their mortgage. The family then moved into their new home: a 1950s, semi-detached ‘fixer upper’ that required work.

But just over two years later, in July 2022, Veronika was diagnosed.

She had had symptoms for a while, she says, including blood in her urine, and GPs kept telling her it was a urinary tract infection (UTI). She was prescribed antibiotics but eventually the pain got so bad that she booked a private consultation because she wasn’t being referred for further investigation by her GP or urologist.

Two weeks later, she was told she had a tumour.

Veronika’s case was unusual, she tells me. “If you’re not 45, they’ll just give you an ultrasound,” Veronika says, “and the ultrasound doesn’t show anything because it’s so dark – only a camera [used during a cystoscopy] can. It’s all about age, and then the second factor is gender – it’s a very, very male disease.”

Veronika was diagnosed with stage three bladder cancer last July, but by December she was told it was terminal (Image: Veronika Guardi)

For 95pc of people with bladder cancer, treatment is relatively straightforward, but Veronika’s case proved far more complex.

“In July, it was stage three, and in December, it was terminal,” she says. 

It was only after the second diagnosis, as she and her husband tried to process what this meant, that she had her “lightbulb” moment and remembered that she’d taken out life insurance. It was life-changing.

“Everybody can stay in the house,” she says. “The mortgage has been paid in full by the life insurance payout.

“It was such a silver lining. I was jumping up and down, it was such a relief.
 
“Knowing that I’ve done this for my children is the best legacy I could leave for them.”

Veronika has already done some work to the property, but says she's hoping to do more to make it nice for the boys (Image: Veronika Guardi)

Easing the financial worries has allowed Veronika to focus on other things, including making the house “nice for the boys” – she says, with good humour, that she has promised her husband Thomas she won’t leave him with a pink kitchen.

She’s also trying to help as many other people as possible, whether that’s through raising awareness about the disease, fundraising for local charities or helping to test out a pioneering new treatment. 

“Chemotherapy doesn’t work for me,” she explains, “and normal immunotherapy doesn’t work for the type of cancer I have and where it is.” 

Instead, she’s taking part in an innovative new immunotherapy trial at the cancer centre at University College London. 

“The drug I’m having is already used for lung cancer, successfully, but now they’re testing it on me to see if it’s going to work on my type of cancer, which is very similar to lung cancer but it originated from by bladder instead.

Veronika has been undergoing an immunotherapy trial at UCL in London as other treatment options don't work for her type of cancer (Image: Veronika Guardi)

“That’s where the logic is. If it will work for lung cancer, it will work for me – on paper, anyway. I’m the first one for them to test it on and I’m the only one – literally the only one!

“I feel like it’s important to do. It might help me. Potentially it might give me more time.”

When it comes to time, Veronika is trying to focus less on how much she has left and instead how she can use it. “Things can happen very quickly, very suddenly and unexpectedly,” she says. “But things can also take longer than predicted, so nobody even knows. 

“I’m trying not to focus on exactly how much I have left. It’s a really sad topic because it’s not much anyway, whatever it is, but I want to focus on what I’m going to do with that time. It makes me feel better that I’m being proactive.”

Later this month, she’ll be hosting a pop-up with Laura Budds of Norfolk Retro in Norwich, where she will be selling items from her fashion brand Guardi – which produces vintage-inspired garments using deadstock fabrics – at half their usual prices. 

“I can’t run a marathon or bungee jump but I have lots of dresses to sell,” she laughs, and she’s even working on some spring colourways to help generate more funds.

Profits raised will be donated to the Big C, a charity that she says has helped her “tremendously” over the past six or seven months.

Veronika will be selling items from her slow fashion brand, Guardi, at a pop up event in Norwich later this month, with the profits raised going to the Big C, which she says has helped her tremendously since her diagnosis (Image: Veronika Guardi/Laura Budds)

“You can literally go straight into the Big C, opposite the hospital, and you can sit down and have a cup of tea and a biscuit and talk to somebody.

“They will chat to you, they will explain things, they will just provide you with that support that the hospital doesn’t really have.”

Veronika says the team at the Big C has helped her with everything from financial support, disability access and answering questions about treatments and side effects to referring her on to the palliative care team.

The charity has also just referred the family to therapy, to give emotional support and counselling to her, her husband and two sons as they adjust to life in the wake of her diagnosis.

“It’s the charities that are handling that kind of personal help, that emotional support, that you really need,” she says, “which is so important for any patient and any diagnosis – not just cancer.”

Profits from Guardi's sale have already raised over £1,000 for the Big C, and Veronika says she's determined to help as many other people as she can in the time she has left (Image: Veronika Guardi)

Veronika doesn’t like the words fighting, battling, winning or losing, and she says she’s neither a victim nor a heroine – but if telling her story can help one other person go to the doctor to get checked out, take out life insurance or show the human side of patient care, all the better.

“I always wanted to do so much with my life and I feel like it’s been cut short and it’s really annoying. I had plans. If I can do something with what I have left, I’ll do it.”

Veronika’s fashion brand Guardi will have a pop-up shop at 62 St Augustine’s Street from Wednesday, March 29 until Sunday, April 2. Visit guardiworld.com for more information, or visit Veronika's blog at veronikaguardi.wixsite.com

What is life insurance?

Life insurance can help to give your family financial protection if you pass away in the time you have your policy.

It allows you to leave behind an amount of money to help those you love by giving them some financial support and, with it, peace of mind.

A variety of policies exist and you can cover one person, known as a single policy, or two, known as a joint policy – but the policy will only pay out once. 

In most cases you can get life insurance even if you have medical conditions, but the cover you can get depends on personal circumstances. 

Aviva offers ‘term life insurance’, which means it will pay out a sum of money if you die or if you’re diagnosed with a terminal illness and are not expected to live more than 12 months.

Depending on your policy, you decide how the money is paid out, including whether it covers specific payments such as rent or a mortgage or if it’s to be left as inheritance.

Would you like to stay up to date with the latest property news in your area? Sign up to the Eastern Daily Press newsletter for our pick of the best local property stories.