Ed Hinerman On Life Insurance

Good question!

May 11th, 2007

Allie Beatty who writes for www.thediabetesblog.com brought up a question about how staunch life insurance underwriters are about the HbA1c being the benchmark for determination of control for type 1 and type 2 diabetes. It was her contention that, especially with type 1 diabetes, the c-peptide was at least as important, if not more relevant to the issue of control than the standard HbA1c.

After reading a few articles indicating that Ms Beatty may in fact have a point, I put the question out to some of the top experts in life insurance underwriting. That is in process and I will let you know what I find.

In the meantime, just as a refresher, the following are the standards that I know most underwriters will look at and how they will view it. For someone being treated for diabetes, an A1c below 6.5 is considered excellent control, 6.5-7.5 good control, 7.6 -8.0 moderate control and above 8 would be considered poor control. Generally speaking an A1c above 10 would not be insurable.

Again, just as a refresher, what underwriters look at when evaluating a diabetic is the age of onset, compliance with treatment, control of the diabetes and control of associated risk factors. If someone takes their medicine as prescribed, but doesn’t address other risk factors such as diet, weight, hypertension, etc, they aren’t going to find a lot of support from the underwriters.

Again, the good news is that diabetes is not the end of good life insurance rates, at least not all by itself.

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• Headway On Life Insurance Underwriting Of Type 1 Diabetes!

Entry Filed under: Type 1 diabetes, Type 2 diabetes, hypertension, insurance, life insurance