Life Insurance With A Frozen Shoulder
Most joint problems on a form are described by where they hurt. This one is better described by how long it takes.
Frozen shoulder runs through phases over a period usually measured in years rather than weeks, which makes the dates and the current phase the most useful thing you can give us.
There is also a connection worth knowing about, and it is not about the shoulder at all.
The short answer
Frozen shoulder is loss of movement in the shoulder from thickening of the joint capsule, and it has an unusually long and well-described course: painful, then stiff, then slowly recovering, often over one to three years. It is also strongly associated with diabetes, which is why an application asking about blood sugar is asking something genuinely relevant.
What it is
Adhesive capsulitis, usually called frozen shoulder, is thickening and tightening of the capsule surrounding the shoulder joint, which restricts movement and causes pain.
It characteristically goes through a painful phase, a stiff or frozen phase and a thawing phase, commonly over one to three years in total. Treatment includes physiotherapy, painkillers, steroid injection into the joint and, in persistent cases, procedures such as hydrodilatation, manipulation under anaesthetic or arthroscopic release.
Why it comes up on an application
- It has a long natural history, so where you are in it is the useful answer: still painful, stiff, or recovering.
- The diabetes association is strong and well recognised. People with diabetes get frozen shoulder considerably more often, and in some people the shoulder is what leads to the blood sugar being checked.
- Procedures are common at the persistent end and each has a name worth using: injection, hydrodilatation, manipulation under anaesthetic, arthroscopic release. All are more than physiotherapy.
- It affects the other shoulder in a proportion of people, so a bilateral history is a real thing and more substantial than one episode.
- Shoulder pain is usually imaged, and any scan counts as an investigation.
What we would ask you
- Which shoulder, when it started, and which phase you are in now
- Whether the other shoulder has ever been affected
- What treatment you have had, including any injection or procedure under anaesthetic
- Whether you have ever been tested for diabetes, and the result
- Whether it has affected your work
- 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 Diabetes Question Is Not A Diversion
If an application asks about diabetes and you are filling it in because of your shoulder, that is a relevant question rather than a scattergun one.
The association between frozen shoulder and diabetes is well recognised, and people with diabetes develop it substantially more often. It works the other way too: for some people, an unexplained frozen shoulder is the reason a doctor checks their blood sugar for the first time.
So if you have ever had an HbA1c or a fasting glucose test, that result is worth knowing and worth declaring. A normal result is a complete and useful answer. If something was found, that is the more substantial entry of the two by a wide margin.
Say Which Phase You Are In
This is the detail that makes a frozen shoulder answer informative rather than vague, and it is unique to this condition.
A shoulder that started hurting three months ago and is getting stiffer is in a very different place from one that froze two years ago and now moves almost normally. Both are honestly described as frozen shoulder, and they are not the same entry.
So give the start date and where you are now. If you have had a procedure under anaesthetic, name it, because manipulation under anaesthetic and arthroscopic release are operations rather than treatments and belong on the form as such.
Which cover is relevant
Genuinely relevant, because the stiff phase can last many months and overhead or lifting work becomes impossible during it. Fencing contractors and anybody working above shoulder height feel this most.
The usual starting point. Where blood sugar has been checked because of the shoulder, that result matters more to the picture than the shoulder.
Pays on diagnosis of a listed serious condition, and this is not one, though some policies cover specified surgery. Read the definitions.
Common questions
Why are you asking about diabetes for a shoulder problem?+
Because the association is strong and well recognised: people with diabetes get frozen shoulder considerably more often, and an unexplained frozen shoulder is sometimes the reason blood sugar gets checked. If you have had an HbA1c or glucose test, that result is worth declaring.
How long does frozen shoulder last?+
Characteristically one to three years through painful, stiff and thawing phases, which is why it is unusual among joint conditions. On a form, saying when it started and which phase you are in now is the most useful answer.
I had a manipulation under anaesthetic. How do I describe it?+
As a procedure under anaesthetic, with roughly when. Manipulation under anaesthetic and arthroscopic release are operations rather than treatments, and they belong on a form as such rather than as physiotherapy.
Both my shoulders have had it. Does that matter?+
It is a more substantial history and worth stating with rough dates. A proportion of people do get it in the other shoulder, so it is not unusual, but it is a bigger entry than a single episode.
Will it affect my income protection?+
It is worth asking rather than assuming, and anything already in your records will be asked about. The honest point is that the stiff phase can last many months and makes overhead and lifting work impossible, so for those trades this is a realistic claim rather than a theoretical one.
Cover that often goes with this
The gaps we most often find sitting next to this one.