Life Insurance With Ear Infections Or Glue Ear
Most adults had ear infections as children and most have nothing to show for it.
The ones worth declaring properly are the ones that left something behind, and that is usually about hearing or about the eardrum itself.
This page is about telling those apart.
The short answer
Childhood ear infections and glue ear are extremely common and usually finished long before anybody applies for insurance. What matters is what they left: a perforated eardrum, grommets, repeated surgery, or any lasting hearing loss. The hearing, rather than the infection, is what an application is reaching for.
What it is
Acute otitis media is infection of the middle ear, common in young children, causing pain and fever and often settling without antibiotics. Repeated infection can perforate the eardrum, which usually heals.
Glue ear, or otitis media with effusion, is fluid behind the eardrum causing muffled hearing, again mostly in children. Where it persists and affects hearing, small ventilation tubes called grommets are sometimes inserted.
In adults, recurrent infection, persistent perforation or chronic middle ear disease are occasionally treated surgically, including repair of the eardrum.
Why it comes up on an application
- Childhood infections that resolved are usually a brief, dated answer with nothing continuing.
- Grommets are a procedure under general anaesthetic in children and worth naming, along with how many times.
- A perforation that has not healed, or repeated perforations, is a continuing structural issue rather than a past infection.
- Any hearing loss is the substantive entry. If you have had a hearing test, the result is useful information and the test itself is an investigation.
- Eardrum repair or other middle ear surgery is a clear operation with a date.
- Occupational noise exposure sits alongside this. Somebody with childhood ear trouble who then spent twenty years in a noisy trade has two things worth declaring, not one.
What we would ask you
- Whether the infections were in childhood only, or continue now
- Whether you had grommets, and how many times
- Whether you have a perforated eardrum, and whether it healed
- Whether you have had any hearing loss or a hearing test, and the result
- Whether you have had any ear surgery
- Whether you work or have worked somewhere noisy
- Whether you are currently off work or working reduced hours because of an accident, injury or illness
- Whether you are waiting on any medical tests, appointments or treatment
- Whether you have been diagnosed with or treated for cancer in the last five years
- Whether a parent, brother or sister was diagnosed with cancer, heart disease or a stroke before 65
- Any medication you take
- Whether you smoke, and your date of birth
The Hearing Is The Entry
If you remember one thing from this page, it is that an application cares considerably more about your hearing than about infections you had when you were five.
Hearing loss is measurable, it is permanent in many cases, and it is listed as a condition in its own right on many critical illness policies. An ear infection in 1994 is not any of those things.
So the useful answers are: do you have any hearing loss, have you had a hearing test, and what did it show. If you have an audiogram result, that is genuinely good information to be able to give, and a normal one is just as worth saying as an abnormal one.
Childhood Ears Plus A Noisy Trade Is Two Entries
This is the combination worth separating, because people merge them into a single vague answer about their ears.
A history of childhood glue ear and grommets is one thing. Twenty years as a factory operative, a CNC machinist, a greenkeeper or an airport ground worker is another, and sustained occupational noise is a recognised cause of hearing loss in its own right.
If both apply to you, declare both. The childhood history explains the grommets; the occupational exposure explains anything the hearing test shows now. Answering with only one of them gives an incomplete picture.
Which cover is relevant
The usual starting point. Childhood infections are rarely a factor; hearing loss and surgery sit in the picture.
Relevant where hearing matters to the job, and around any surgery. Hearing loss can also affect safety-critical roles.
Pays on diagnosis of a listed serious condition. Many policies list total and permanent loss of hearing, which is worth reading rather than assuming either way.
Common questions
Do I need to declare childhood ear infections?+
Answer what you are asked, briefly. Infections that resolved in childhood are a dated entry with nothing continuing. What matters more is anything they left: grommets, a perforation, surgery or hearing loss.
I had grommets as a child. Does that count as surgery?+
Yes, it is a procedure under general anaesthetic and worth naming, along with how many times. It takes a line and is more informative than saying you had ear infections.
Why do you ask about hearing tests?+
Because hearing is the measurable, lasting thing, and it is listed as a condition on many critical illness policies. A hearing test result is useful information whichever way it went, and a normal one is worth giving rather than omitting.
I work somewhere noisy. Is that relevant?+
Yes, and it is a separate entry from any childhood ear history. Sustained occupational noise is a recognised cause of hearing loss, so if both apply to you, declare both rather than merging them.
My eardrum was perforated. What should I say?+
Say whether it healed. A perforation that healed is a past event; one that has not is a continuing structural issue, and repair surgery is a clear operation with a date.
Cover that often goes with this
The gaps we most often find sitting next to this one.