Life Insurance With Diabetes

Insurers Price Your Control, Not The Word "Diabetic"

"I am diabetic" is not the answer an underwriter works from. What they are pricing is the chance that diabetes leads to heart disease, stroke or kidney failure during the policy term, and that chance depends far more on how the condition is behaving than on its name.

Diabetes that is well controlled, free of complications and sitting alongside normal blood pressure and cholesterol is a modest risk. The same diagnosis with drifting readings and early kidney or eye involvement is a substantially different one. That is why two people can both say they have type 2 diabetes and be quoted premiums that are not remotely comparable, and why this application rewards preparation more than almost any other: the detail you provide is the risk, and vague answers get priced cautiously.

HbA1c Is The Number Underwriters Weigh Most

Your HbA1c reflects average blood glucose over the previous two to three months, which is exactly what an insurer pricing decades of cover wants to know. It does more work in the assessment than any other single figure.

Insurers do not publish a common threshold and they do not all draw the line in the same place, so nobody can honestly tell you a number that guarantees a given outcome. What is consistent is the shape of it: a series of stable readings counts for more than one good result in isolation, and a trend of improvement is read more favourably than a trend of drift. If your control has recently improved, say so, with the dated readings to back it.

Type 1, Type 2, Prediabetes And Gestational Diabetes Are Four Different Applications

All four are insurable. They are not equivalent, and it helps to know which conversation you are in.

• Type 1 is usually diagnosed earlier in life, so the insurer is pricing a longer duration of the condition across the term. Ratings are generally larger and fewer insurers compete for it, which makes the choice of where to apply matter more. Severe hypoglycaemic episodes, admissions and diabetic ketoacidosis will be asked about.
• Type 2 is more often accepted at or near ordinary rates where control is good. It is usually assessed together with BMI, blood pressure and cholesterol, because those frequently travel together and an underwriter prices the combination.
• Prediabetes (also recorded as non-diabetic hyperglycaemia or impaired glucose tolerance) often makes little or no difference on its own, but it must be declared where asked.
• Gestational diabetes that resolved after the birth, with a normal follow-up test, usually has little lasting effect. If the follow-up is still outstanding, an insurer may want to see it first.

Diet, Tablets Or Insulin: What Your Treatment Tells An Insurer

Treatment is read as information about how far the condition has progressed. Type 2 managed by diet alone or on a single tablet such as metformin usually indicates an earlier stage than type 2 needing several medicines or insulin. Insulin in type 2 is therefore often priced more cautiously than tablets, though good readings on insulin still count.

In type 1, insulin is simply the treatment and is not a negative in itself. What distinguishes one type 1 applicant from another is HbA1c history, hypoglycaemia awareness and complications. Pumps and continuous glucose monitors are not penalised; the readings they produce can be useful evidence of control.

Complications Move The Answer More Than Duration Does

People often assume the length of time since diagnosis is the main factor. It matters, but complications matter more, because they show the condition has already begun to affect other parts of the body.

Expect questions about retinopathy, protein in the urine or reduced kidney function, neuropathy, foot ulcers, circulation problems and any heart involvement. Diabetes with none of those after many years is usually a better application than diabetes with them after a few. Attending your annual reviews and having documented clear eye screening and kidney tests is not just good for your health; it is evidence an underwriter will take into account.

Critical Illness And Income Protection Are Where Diabetes Bites

Life cover is usually the straightforward part. The other two products are where terms vary most, and where applying direct is most likely to leave you with a policy that does less than you think.

Critical illness cover pays on conditions that diabetes makes more likely: heart attack, stroke, kidney failure and loss of sight among them. An insurer may offer cover with a larger rating, exclude some of those conditions, or decline critical illness while still offering life cover. A policy with exclusions can still be worth having, but only if you know exactly which conditions have gone.

Income protection is often available and is frequently the cover people most need. Here the insurer is pricing your ability to do your own job, so occupation matters as much as readings. Work involving driving, heights or machinery puts more weight on hypoglycaemia history. Outcomes range from standard terms to a diabetes-related exclusion or a longer deferred period. Where an exclusion is applied, some insurers will consider reviewing it after a period of stable control, so ask whether that is available before you accept.

What To Have Ready Before You Apply

The questions are predictable, so the answers can be gathered in advance. Your GP practice or the NHS App will usually show most of this.

• Type of diabetes, date of diagnosis and your age at the time
• Your last two or three HbA1c results, with dates
• Current medication and doses, and when insulin was started if you use it
• Any hypoglycaemic episodes needing someone else's help, hospital admissions or DKA
• Eye screening, kidney (urine and eGFR) and foot check results, and any complications diagnosed
• Recent blood pressure and cholesterol readings, plus height and weight
• Smoking status and alcohol intake
• Time off work because of diabetes in recent years (for income protection)

Three Mistakes That Cost Diabetic Applicants

Rounding readings down. When you apply, the law expects you to answer the insurer's questions honestly and with reasonable care. If an answer turns out to be wrong through carelessness, the insurer can reduce or refuse a claim in line with what it would have done had it known; if it was deliberate, it can cancel the policy. With diabetes, a GP report will usually show the real figures anyway. Our guide on whether life insurance will pay out explains why accurate answers protect the claim.

Applying the week you are diagnosed. Some insurers prefer to see a period of treatment and settled readings before offering terms, and a very recent diagnosis can lead to a postponement. If you need cover now, a broker can identify insurers that will look at a recent diagnosis rather than leaving you to collect refusals.

Trying several insurers direct. Because diabetes guidance varies so much between insurers, it is easy to land with one whose approach does not suit your readings. Each decline or postponement is something later applications may ask about. A specialist broker can pre-check your details against several insurers first. Our comparison of using a broker or going direct sets out the trade-offs.