Deafness & Life Insurance

When you are deaf, getting advice from an insurance broker or insurer themselves is not always the easiest thing in the world.

Many people within the insurance world do not know British Sign Language, or even more so, the technical wordings that need to be used to fully express the messages that we need to advise properly.

Documents, lip reading, instant messaging are all possible, but if BSL is your first language, accessing insurance advice can seem like there the insurance world is not speaking your language.

We are pleased to say that we are working with charities and life insurance companies, to provide you a supportive journey to access insurance.

Things we need to know:

• Do you have mixed hearing, partial hearing loss or full deafness?
• Were you born with your hearing this way?
• Has your hearing loss developed overtime or due to a specific trigger?
• Have you had any surgery?

Life insurance for people with total or partial deafness should be available with most insurers at standard terms.

Deafness that is caused by a specific medical condition, that might specifically affect upon your life expectancy, will need some additional research to find the right insurer for you.

If the deafness is caused by a secondary condition e.g. tinnitus, acoustic neuroma, etc, the insurer will want to ask some more information about your health. Depending upon the medical condition that causes your deafness, it is possible that your insurance premiums will be increased.

This is due to the condition that is causing the deafness and not the deafness itself and it could be a good idea to look at other pages on our site, to find out how insurers assess any other health factors that you have.

Critical illness cover pays out a cash lump sum of money, if you are diagnosed with a medical condition that is listed in the insurer’s claims set e.g. cancer, heart attack, stroke.

Critical illness cover for people who are totally or partially deaf will almost certainly come with an exclusion for deafness. This will mean that the policy has been accepted at non-standard terms.

We know that this doesn’t sound ideal, but please bear with us while we explain it a bit further.

The development of deafness is often a claimable condition on critical illness cover. When you apply for this insurance cover, if you are already deaf, the insurer will exclude this from the claims list, as they cannot give you a policy that would mean you could make an automatic claim as soon as it becomes active.

Provided that you are in good health, you should be eligible for all other aspects of the critical illness policy.

Where deafness is a result of another medical condition, the insurer will assess your application in more detail in regards to these additional factors.

Like life insurance, the insurer will want to know what the other medical condition is, when it was diagnosed, any treatments or surgeries that you have had and any other lasting complications that you may be experiencing.

You may have this information easily to hand, or it may be something that you do not know a lot of the medical details that the insurers wish to know. Please do not worry if you do not know the details as the insurer will ask for your permission to speak with your GP, to confirm everything that has happened.

Income protection pays you a replacement of your monthly income, if you are unable to work due to ill health.

Income protection is the type of policy, where if you are experiencing current symptoms of a health condition that could be claimable on the policy, then there is often an exclusion.

For someone that is blind there will be a blindness exclusion, for someone with repetitive strain injury in their hands there will be an exclusion for inability to work due to their hands. It is the same for people with partial, mixed hearing loss or deafness.

When you have long term hearing loss, it is highly likely that there will be an exclusion for any claim for inability to work, due to your hearing.

The insurer will want to know details about your occupation and the specific duties that you do. Provided that you are not working in a high risk job and that you are in good health, then all other aspects of the income protection policy should still be available to you.

Where additional medical conditions are present, the insurer will want to know more details about your overall health, before they make a decision over whether they can offer you income protection.

If you find that the options for income protection are not of interest, then you may wish to consider Accident, Sickness and Unemployment cover instead. This type of policy replaces your income for 12-24 months if you are unable to work due to long-term injury, disability or involuntary redundancy.

These policies do not require medical information about yourself to be arranged, but it is important to be aware that any claim will be medically underwritten.

Are you planning on going on holiday? We work alongside a specialist travel insurance broker, that can offer you some guidance on the best policies for you. Please visit our dedicated travel page here.