Critical illness cover payouts for diabetes

Having recently spoken about exactly what critical illness cover is, we are now moving on to how certain medical conditions might play a role in the options available to you. For this blog, we will be focusing on diabetes.

Critical illness cover won’t typically payout for diabetes but there are some policies which might pay out if you had been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes over a certain age; usually 40 years old. This isn’t available with all insurers and if you are wondering about this, it’s important to do research.

Diabetes occurs when your blood glucose (blood sugar), is too high, and is much more common than you might think! There are more than 4.9 million people with diabetes in the UK.

Our Diabetes Awareness Week 2022 blog spoke more specifically about how type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes can impact your access to insurance. We ran through some questions you can expect to be asked as well as what terms you might be looking at after applying for insurance.

When it comes to trying to get critical illness whilst having diabetes it can be a little bit tricky. With type 2 diabetes, that’s partly because of its connection to people who are often overweight, and the number of critical illnesses that can also be connected to people who are classed as obese or have a really high BMI. In the insurer’s eye type 2 diabetes leads to a higher risk of the policy paying out, with statistics showing that you are more likely to be diagnosed with a critical illness due to your weight.

Not everyone with type 2 diabetes will experience a critical illness but when the insurers look back at medical data over many decades, having diabetes does lead to a higher chance of having a heart attack, experiencing a stroke or being diagnosed with cancer.  

Type 1 diabetes is different as it is an autoimmune condition. This means that the body is attacking the pancreas and stopping it from developing insulin. Hopefully it is diagnosed as soon as possible which means that the person can be given insulin, to help the body to function properly. Without insulin the rest of the body’s organs have a lot of strain put on them.

This additional strain on the body as well as it constantly trying to attack the pancreas, means that again there is a higher risk of being diagnosed with a critical illness. This was covered in a recent podcast, you can give it a listen below or check out more episode on the Practical Protection Podcast website.

Never say never

It’s not impossible to get critical illness cover if you have diabetes, but there are specific situations that can make it either trickier or easier. If you have type 2 diabetes, there is a policy that can sometimes be available though this does have quite strict criteria. You must:

• Have been a type 2 diabetic for less than 15 years.
• Have been diagnosed over the age of 40.
• Be a non-smoker.
• Have HbA1c readings that are typically less than 8%.
• Have no other associated conditions such as eye, kidney, heart or circulation problems.
• Have had a normal urinalysis test.

There are specialist insurers who we can also approach to try and arrange cover, though these may come with an exclusion on your policy or potentially a maximum policy terms set by the insurer.

Group cover

When needing protection insurance, many peoples first thought isn’t group protection, but it can often be a great option. Group is a policy that is arranged by a Ltd company for its employees (a minimum of 2 people). Most of these policies come with a certain level of free medical underwriting, where a diagnosis of diabetes will have no influence on your acceptance for life insurance or income protection, up to a certain amount of money.

This means that a person with an existing health condition can have the protection just as easily as a person with no health conditions. Group cover can sometimes be a little bit confusing, as many people haven’t heard of it, but our advisers can help take you through all aspects of these policies so that you can find out if it’s right for you. They also often come with some great added benefits, such as access to a second medical opinion services, mental health and rehabilitation support.

If you have been diagnosed with diabetes and don’t know where to start when it comes to critical illness cover, or just protection insurance in general, our experienced advisers are on hand to support you to get the protection that you need.

Related blogs

5 Tips on how to choose the right protection adviser

Access to insurance

Diabetes Awareness Week 2022