My daughter is 3, diagnosed about 3 months ago. I had contacted a life insurance company to ask if I was able to get life insurance for her now and if that would be better/easier for her to get life insurance as an adult. I was told that anyone dx under 10yrs old was an automatic denial. I was told that if she had "very good control" as an adult she would be "considered". Wondering how or if any of you T1D have been able to obtain insurance and if you had trouble, if it is worth what premiums you pay. Any advice or info greatly appreciated. (Living in Canada, if that makes a difference)
difficult at best. I have been very lucky, my Father signed me up for Gerber Life Insurance (whole life) long before i got sick which I still have. This wont help you. I had the good fortune to work for a large medical products company and was able to sign up for life insurance through the company, with no proof, no questions, and no physical. When they laid me off 5 years later I had an opportunity to convert that policy to a whole life policy which I took advantage of. Now I work for big pharma and was able to get another policy through them with the same no proof, no questions deal which I took again. For most of us, the questionnaire directly asks if you take insulin or have diabetes, even for crappy "Term" policies, I assume it's for an automatic disapproval.
I was also able to get a few $5,000 term policies without much effort, perhaps 4 of those would help if you can find them - usually through credit card or bank/credit union organizations.
good luck, don't give up, but I am guessing the road ahead will not be easy
Damn. I was afraid of all that, Joe. Thanks for sharing your experience. The truth is it never occured to me to ever obtain life or medical insurance on my child. We have no family hx of any type of illness so it just didn't cross my mind. I know I can't go back, but I sure do wish I'd have thought about it before this happened.
I was never able to get priviate health or life insurance as a type 1. Doesn't matter how well controlled you are.
My employer gives me both as part of their group benefits plan, which is a big reason I chose my job. Was able to pay a little extra but get a $100,000 life insurance.
don't blame yourself Jen. the life insurance will only benefit your daughter if it's a "whole life" and has face value (IE she could borrow against the policy and use the money for school or something), term policies are for paying "final expenses". so what's important here? I guess you might find a small value term policy in case (god forbid) something happens to her, and in the meantime set aside money for her in a savings, CD, or ESA/529 or whatever. she'll eventually be out in the workforce and will probably have insurance available through work. I pay reasonable premiums and have over 500,000 in life insurance, with "double-down" if I get killed while at work (pls don't tell my wife, hahahahah) through my employer
Hi Jen,
Definitely it will make some short of difference that you lived in Canada. Well Child policies are there in most of the insurance companies. You can choose any of them from the list of life insurance companies. Hope this will help you and also you could contact the insurance agent for the same.
Group life plans are your best bet with an early diagnosis of Type 1. If you still want to try another avenue, you could speak with an agent at an aggregator website selling term life insurance online that has a larger gamut of insurance carriers to choose from. You may find carriers that specialize in high risk conditions that an independent agent would not have access to. Make sure that the Additional Purchase Benefit (APB) option is activated on the policy. With type 1, qualifying even for a no-medical examination whole life policy (the Gerber type of policy) for children may be hard.
Denise Mancini
Disclaimer: I work for AccuQuote and this is my personal opinion.