Life Insurance for Diabetics?

1

I am wondering if anyone knows where to secure life insurance for a diabetic. I am able to get on my policy with my company (which they have since discontinued). But, even that policy was only $50,000.

Any thoughts on where to find life insurance for diabetics?

Thanks,
Jack

2

Jack,
A couple of things are going to be influential on you getting insurance, but your age at diagnosis and your current a1c are both important. Also how much you are really looking for. If you want to let me know what your need, I’ll get you some quotes from some of the diabetic friendly carriers.

3

Try New York Life.

4

I’ve tried NYL thru a known agent my family has used since I was little, before I was diagnosed. They flat-out denied me!

5

In the 70’s I was working in Insurance at a Brokerage Firm that specialized in high risk insurance and we dealt with Transamerica, US Life and a couple of others that I can’t remember. Normally your NYL, MetLife, etc would never touch the high risk business

6

I spoke with a life insurance broker associated with my alumni association about this a few weeks ago. Since I was just diagnosed and don’t have a low A1C under my belt yet, he told me to wait until I had one or two more blood tests to apply.

He said that based on other aspects of my health, there’s a slim possibility of getting a “standard” rate. Most healthy 25 year-olds would get a “prime” rate, but that’s more than I can expect. In general, according to the person I spoke with, a diabetic would get anywhere from a “table 2” to a “table 4” rate, which carry increased premiums of 50-100%.

Anyway, the broker was very informative and spent about half an hour on the phone discussing the basics with me. He said the life insurance industry is regulated in a way that brokers neither mark-up or discount rates off the rack rates provided directly from the insurance companies.

The company’s name was Meyer and Associates. They say they work with alumni programs for over 100 schools. I have the contact info for the man I spoke to, if you’re interested. His father has type 2 diabetes and is in his 80’s, so it was nice to speak to someone in the insurance industry who knew about our condition and knew it’s possible to live a long time with diabetes.