Can I Get Life Insurance with Diabetes?

Congratulations on buying your first home! Many people look at Mortgage Life Insurance when taking out their first mortgage to cover the debt should they pass away. It’s certainly sensible to get cover.

Diabetes and Life Insurance

Fortunately, taking out Life Insurance for diabetics can be possible. Each insurer has their own way of measuring risk, therefore each insurer will view things differently. There are a few variants that the insurers will consider when it comes to covering diabetes.

Every insurer will add what’s called a “loading” to the premium which means there will be an increase from the standard premium to reflect the higher risk.

What information the insurers will what to know

This loading varies with each insurer and there are a number of factors they will consider when deciding what the loading will be. Some of these factors will include the following:

• Whether it’s Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes
• If you have high blood pressure or high cholesterol
• Your height, weight and body mass index (BMI)
• If there’s a family history of diabetes or other cardiovascular disease
• What your blood glucose/HbA1c readings are and whether they’ve been stable over time.

To summarise, Life Insurance providers will usually cover diabetes with a loading and this will be determined on a case by case basis once all of the variants have been assessed. The insurers will write to your GP to gather this information.

It’s unlikely diabetes will be excluded from Life Insurance. Very few insurers place exclusions on life policies, even for an illness as serious as diabetes.