Diabetes Awareness Week 2022

Diabetes affects more than 4.9 million people with diabetes in the UK alone, with that being said, it’s important that people know exactly what it is.

Diabetes Awareness Week is an annual campaign in June, celebrating all of the people who have been impacted by diabetes, and all of their supporters too.

There’s a huge number of people with diabetes in the UK, and that number is set to increase with there being 13.6 million people at risk of type 2 diabetes and an estimated 850,000 living with type 2 diabetes undiagnosed. The NHS spends around 10% of their budget on diabetes alone, so it’s definitely something worthy of a conversation.

The two main types are type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes.

Type 1 diabetes

Close to 8% of people with diabetes have been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. This causes your glucose levels to be too high due to not producing enough insulin. This can be controlled by regular blood testing and insulin injections. 

Type 2 diabetes

Similar to type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes is caused because there’s too much sugar (glucose) in the blood. Some of the causes of type 2 diabetes are being overweight and inactive, or family history.

There are some common symptoms of these two types of diabetes:

• Feeling extremely thirsty
• Being very tired
• Losing weight without trying too
• Blurred vision
• Needing to wee more often than normal
  
  

These are just some of the symptoms, and that doesn’t mean you should panic if you have had any of those, as it could just be a coincidence. But if you are concerned, get in touch with your GP to talk things through.

Access to insurance

Diabetes can play a role in the protection insurance available to you, it all depends on your circumstances. Luckily enough, we have helped many people living with diabetes to get protection insurance.

Life insurance

Life insurance can sometimes be arranged if there are no other health conditions or concerns. The insurer will want to know what type of diabetes you have and when you were diagnosed, they will also want to know your HbA1C reading, blood pressure, cholesterol and height and weight. Not everybody has all of these to hand, so it’s normal for an insurer to request a medical report from your GP to gather all of the details if you’re unsure of them.

Depending on your readings, life insurance might be available with a price increase if you have type 1 diabetes and potentially normal terms if you have type 2 diabetes.

Critical illness cover

The questions an insurer will ask for critical illness cover will be very similar to the questions mentioned above. For a person with type 2 diabetes, there are a few insurers who might offer you cover but only usually with an exclusion and a price increase too. You must also fit the criteria, which is:

• Be a type 2 diabetic and have been for less than 15 years.
• 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.
  
  

Unfortunately, personal critical illness cover isn’t usually available for a person with type 1 diabetes. It hasn’t been too long since some insurers started to consider covering a person with type 2 diabetes, so we hope that this might be available in the not too distant future. There can be a lot more options if we are able to look at group protection insurance for you.

Income protection

A personal income protection application again is quite similar, but is looked at much more strictly. There are just a few insurers who will offer income protection for a person with diabetes, but for those that do you can expect a price increase or exclusion added to the policy.

Case studies

• A woman in her early 30s came to Cura needing life insurance to provide her family with financial protection. She had been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes just over 20 years ago and controlled this with insulin. She now has a decreasing life insurance policy for 32 years with a premium of less than £37 per month. The benefit amount of this policy started at just over £230,000 and decreases inline with her mortgage.
  
  
• A woman in her mid 50s approached us needing protection insurance to cover her mortgage. She had been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes almost 5 years ago. She controls this with her diet and there had been diabetes related complications. She now has a life insurance policy for £90,000 over 23 years, with a monthly premium of under £28.
  
  

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