It Keeps Getting Better!

Life insurance for adults with type 1 diabetes has continued to improve since I last updated this post in 2019. Testing, monitoring and insulin administration has been improving as fast as any technology and these advancements have the attention of more life insurance companies than ever. All of the improvements lend themselves to consistent control and that keeps the health issues that can accompany type 1 diabetes at bay. Less risk of collateral health issues equals better prices.

Life Insurance Approvals for Type 1 Diabetes: The Past

In the past I wrote about how there seemed to be a roadblock for life insurance approvals for adults with juvenile onset diabetes in two areas. The first was that virtually all companies didn’t want to consider anyone that was diagnosed prior to age 5. The other was current age needed to be 30 or over. This became bold letter print clear when I was working with a client who was a poster child (adult) for type 1 diabetes. They were healthy in all aspects including the daily maintenance of their diabetes. They were compliant with treatment since diagnosis (of course thanks to their parents in the early years). With A1c’s that ran between 6.5 and 6.8 and absolutely no collateral health issues, I was dismayed when I couldn’t find any companies that would quote because her age of onset was 4.

This made no sense to me since the same client with a diagnosis on their 5th birthday would have had several good offers. I went a little crazy over the lack of logic to that line in the sand and finally got an underwriter who said she would make an exception as long as everything else proved out as I had presented it. It did and she was approved for life insurance, but the underwriter made it clear that it was an exception, as in DON’T ASK ME AGAIN, at least for a while.

Life Insurance Approvals for Type 1 Diabetes: The Present

What was an exception is now accepted underwriting. I recently shopped a life insurance case of juvenile onset adult diabetes where onset was age 3. I knew there was movement in the right direction so I went out for quotes cautiously skeptical, but was wonderfully surprised when five companies came back with offers, all of them very fair rates. I also now have companies who have backed off of the under age 30 roadblock, so really, except for juvenile onset juveniles, we’ve made huge life insurance progress in just about every area of type 1 diabetes.

The Bottom Line

It’s always exciting to see the progress of life insurance underwriting catch up with treatment advances. This allows us to be able to help clients get life insurance approvals for Type 1 Diabetes. Not unlike finally getting life insurance approvals for prostate cancer survivors on watchful waiting, it all has to do with advances in earlier detection, better monitoring methods and better treatment and control..

If you have any questions or would like to find out what is available for your specific situation, please call or email me directly. My name is Ed Hinerman. Let’s talk.