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Finding a suitable life insurance becomes harder if person’s health is not in the good condition. One of the diseases that can cause problems while searching for life insurance is diabetes. Even though if under good control diabetes can cause no major danger to the person, for insurance companies the most important factor is that diabetes which is not fully controlled can cause serious complications and that puts the ones with diabetes in higher risk group compared to other clients of insurance companies.
Finding a life insurance
First of all, usually the insurance company asks to answer many health questions. Even if the person has diabetes, the condition of the person and the level of sickness differ in each case. Thus, it is important to keep ones diabetes under good management: regularly visiting doctors, taking the prescribed medicaments and not deviating from prescribed treatment plan.
By showing and proving good management of diabetes, the chances of getting life insurance increases considerably. Insurance companies evaluates the risk of issuing insurance policy and in case of good control of diabetes the risk of serious complications or even death is much lower compared to when the diabetes is controlled poorly or not controlled at all.
However, insurance companies do not know how regularly the person takes his predicaments and there is no chance that they can keep track of the behaviour of the person. Two main indicators usually can show if diabetes is under good control or is managed poorly: blood-sugar levels of the persons and their haemoglobin HbA1C count. Thus, usually an insurance company tend to look at these indicators to decide the risk of issuing an insurance policy.
Moreover, it is important to remember, that critical illness cover is not provided for diabetics. One more factor that is important to remember is that the younger is the person, the riskier he is considered by the insurance providers. It also can be mentioned that if the person is sick for shorter term than 12 months, he is also considered a risky client, as in the first year of diabetes readings and indicators can fluctuate considerably.
Other possible problems
It is also important to remember that insurance companies will look not only at the blood-sugar levels or haemoglobin count. There are other important factors that can either help or destroy the chances of getting a life insurance on good rates.
First of all, insurance companies will look if the person is overweight. If this is the case, then getting a life insurance policy on standard rates becomes almost impossible even if diabetes is controlled well. Being overweight is seen as a very risky factor on its own, however along with diabetes it is viewed as being extremely risky.
Moreover, it is not advisable to smoke while having diabetes. It is important for the person’s health. However, this factor is also important to the insurance companies because smokers tend to pay much higher premiums for their insurance. One more factor that will be considered by the insurance companies is high blood pressure. If the person has high blood pressure, he will be viewed as a more risky client and rates are likely to be higher than in other circumstances.
Premiums for diabetics
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Once the person gives to insurance company information that he is diabetic, life insurance providers usually give additional questions to better find out about current condition of a possible client. Also person’s GP or consultant might be asked to provide information about his patient.
Three main factors determine the premium: age, onset of the condition and control levels. The premium for diabetics is usually calculated using standard rates and multiples. In order to determine what multiple should be used HbA1C readings are used as well as type of diabetes and the age of the person.
Diabetes.co.uk website provides rough idea of what premiums can be expected. For example, a man who has 2nd type diabetes, is between 30 and 40 years old and has HbA1C level of 4-6 % can expect rates of 50% of standard rates (of course if they are not overweight, does not smoke etc.). However, a 30-40 years old man with 1st type of diabetes and HbA1C readings of 9-10% can expect premiums to be 200% and more of standard rates. It can be clearly seen that for 1st type of diabetes larger premiums are paid and the higher HbA1C readings are, the higher the premiums will be.