Can I get Life Insurance with COPD 2023

When you apply for life insurance there are usually quite a lot of medical questions. These can be things that you have ever had such as cancer, heart attack or stroke, things that you’ve had in the last 5 years and it’s in this set of questions that COPD often pops up.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is a condition that insurers do like to know about when they are assessing life insurance applications. Insurance is based upon risk and what the insurer wants to do is double check how much the COPD is affecting you.

When you are applying for life insurance most insurers are going to ask some specific questions about your COPD.

The insurer is going to want to know

• When were you diagnosed with COPD?
• Do you need to take any medications?
• Do you need any inhalers or oxygen?
• How often do you experience symptoms of COPD?
• Do you smoke cigarettes, cigars or e-cigarettes?

There can often be options for life insurance if you are living with COPD. The time that it can be trickier is if you are a smoker. Insurers do see the mixture of smoking and COPD as being a high risk for a person to become quite poorly. 

For non-smokers there will likely be quite a few insurers that can consider your application. The strength of your symptoms and the amount of treatments that you need will be key factors in finding the right insurer for you.

If you are a smoker it is quite likely that you will probably need to place your life insurance to very specific insurers, that can accept your application. 

For life insurance you will find that most insurers will offer you life insurance at non-standard terms. This means that there will be an increase to the policy premiums, due to you having COPD. The main thing is to find the insurer that does the smallest increase and this is where our award winning advisers standout.

Most insurers will ask for your permission to see a report from your GP to confirm your medical history. I quite like it when this is asked for. Yes it does mean that the application can take a little while, but it means that the insurer has a complete picture of your health.

One of the biggest worries with insurance is non-disclosure, this is where you don’t remember to tell them something in your application. By allowing the insurer to speak with your GP you can feel confident that you have done your best to be open and truthful with the insurer.

These reports are only done with your expressed permission. They can unfortunately take a few weeks, we usually say an average of 8 weeks, so it’s a good idea to get applications in with the insurer to get things moving.

I also like to suggest that it’s a good idea to specifically say that you want to see the report before it gets sent to the GP. This is so that you know what is being said about you as sometimes the reports can have errors in them.

The Best Insurer

There is no specific insurer that we can point to and say – yes, they’re the ones for people living with COPD. It would be great if we could but there are so many things that we need to consider when choosing the right insurer for you.

Your height and weight, if you smoke, any other medical conditions, your family medical history, the types of treatment that you have, all play a part. Plus there’s even more stuff too.

Our expert advisers will ask you about all the things that we need to know to find the right insurer for you. We are here to search the market for you, to do all the donkey work, to make sure that you get the best terms of life insurance