World AIDS Day 2022. What are my protection insurance options?

World Aids Day is a very well known, annual campaign, but it wouldn’t be anywhere near as successful if there weren’t so many people and organisations working towards raising awareness.

HIV and AIDS are not the same thing, but they are connected. If a person has AIDS, their immune system is much weaker than someone that doesn’t have the condition. AIDS stands for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, and occurs when your immune system has been severely damaged by the HIV virus. If HIV is left untreated or unmonitored, it can potentially lead to AIDS.

In 2019, there were estimated to be 105,200 people living with HIV in the UK, and around 9% of them are undiagnosed. That means that there are around 1 in every 16 people living with HIV, that don’t know they have HIV. 

As time goes on, there’s more and more research into the likes of treatment, meaning that the number of people with HIV to live past the age of 50 is on the rise. It used to be that HIV was seen as a condition that would lead to someone’s death, but now with effective treatment HIV is no longer affecting a person’s life expectancy.

As people are living longer, there becomes more of a need to have protection insurance in place. Arranging protection insurance can seem a bit daunting at the best of times, even more so when you have an existing medical condition, but we hope to settle any worries that you might have about applying for cover.

Access to insurance

When you’re applying for any type of protection insurance, it’s extremely likely that the insurer will want to know the details surrounding your HIV. There are some common questions which most insurers will ask:

• When were you diagnosed with HIV?
• Were you diagnosed in the UK?
• What is your viral load?
• What is your CD4 count?
• What medication do you take?
• Does your GP know that you have HIV?
  
  

We will never ask you the circumstances as to how you contracted HIV. There are no protection insurance policies in the UK with applications that will ask you about your sexual history, if you speak to someone and they ask you about this, they are not using a legitimate insurance application.

An insurer will usually also request further medical evidence. This would usually be a note from either your GP or specialist, and on certain occasions they might request a few tests to be carried out by a nurse too.

We understand that people don’t always want to share their medical information, and it’s quite common for a person with HIV to not tell their doctor and just use a specialist for this instead. That’s why we have specific processes in place to keep your HIV status confidential.

We will possibly also ask you about any complications that you might have that could be linked to your HIV status. This could be things like recurrent pneumonia, Kapowi’s sarcoma and a few other things.

Life insurance

There are some insurers who will limit a life insurance policy to a maximum of 20 years, so it is really important to look at which insurer suits your needs if you are wanting to be covered for longer than that. We are now in a situation where some insurers can consider applications without any time limit on the policy length, which is a great development that we have seen in the last few years.

Many insurers will want to know that your HIV is well controlled and details of when you started your medication and what type you are using. If your HIV is shown to be well controlled with an undetectable viral load and good CD4 count, you are likely to find a few insurers willing to consider your application. This does always come down to individual circumstances. There are sometimes options for life insurance if your viral load is slightly detectable, but these are very specific circumstances and it is best to speak with one of our advisers so that we can do research for you.

One thing that we are finding at the moment is that BHIVA have suggested to HIV specialists that they no longer need to check CD4 counts if your viral load is undetectable. This can sometimes cause a bit of a delay in insurance applications as many insurers still want to know the CD4 levels and if your last check was a few years ago, the insurer might offer you terms of life insurance as expected or they might increase the premium.

Insurers tend to wait until a year has passed before accepting an application for life insurance, but after that year has passed, it could be that you’re given terms. We are now at a stage where sometimes life insurance is offered at standard terms, with no price increases due to your HIV status. However, many insurers will still offer terms at an increased premium due to you living with HIV.

Critical illness cover

We’re so pleased to say that we are seeing the development of options for critical illness cover on the standard market, for people living with HIV. As this is quite new, it’s really not possible for us to say what sort of terms you might be faced with, but it’s really positive news!

Income protection

There are quite limited options at the moment for income protection, but there are a couple of insurers who might consider an application. Again, because this is relatively new, it’s not easy for us to indicate what might be available to you without looking at your individual circumstances.

For life insurance, critical illness cover and income protection  we could potentially approach a specialist insurer if we haven’t yet found something on the standard market that we think would truly suit your needs. We could also look at the possibility of you having access to group protection insurance, which is normally something taken out by an employer for its employees.

Case studies

• Just before the pandemic, a woman in her mid 40s came to us needing protection insurance to ensure her family is cared for in the event of her death. She had been diagnosed with HIV less than 10 years before coming to us, she had a CD4 count of over 350 and an undetectable viral load. We initially arranged a life insurance policy of £2.5m over 20 years for £521 per month. After having that policy in place for around 3 years, we went back to the client to review their policy as insurance guidelines had changed. We rearranged her life insurance with a new policy of £2.5m for just under £316 per month. Saving her £200 per month and an extra 3 years on the policy term!
  
  
• Over 5 years ago, two men in their 30s approached Cura needing protection to cover their mortgage. Around 10 years before coming to us, they had both received a diagnosis of HIV. They both had been on medication since diagnosis, had a CD4 count over 600 and an undetectable viral load. At the time, we arranged several life insurance policies to cover their needs. We recently reviewed their policies as we believed more favourable terms would now be available. We replaced their existing policies with a joint life insurance policy, covering them both for £331,500 for less than £46 per month for 30 years. We also arranged individual policies too, each covered for £150,000 over 30 year at a combined premium of £45 per month. By reviewing and rearranging their policies, they saved around £75 per month and also got an extra 14 years added to the policy term.
  
  

If you have any questions about any of the things which have been mentioned, or just questions about protection insurance in general, please do get in touch with one of our protection insurance advisers.

Useful links

UK HIV Statistics | National AIDS Trust

World AIDS Day

Related blogs

World AIDS Day 2021

Underwrite hard, Claim easy

Answering the public’s common questions – life insurance edition