I feel like one of those people who puts tacks in a map every time they visit another state. I am literally sticking pins in the type 1 diabetes life insurance approval map and the number of areas where we are getting approvals is growing every few weeks.

As covered in the last post I wrote on type 1 diabetes, formerly one of the life insurance impairments with the quickest decline rate, rarely making it to acquisition of medical records, we now have half a dozen situations that multiple companies will underwrite to an affordable approval. With the caveats that the diabetes is well controlled and has not caused any collateral health issues,

1. Several companies will approve juvenile onset type 1 if the insured is at least 30 with no complications. Most of those require the onset to be after age 5

2. A few companies will approve with the onset prior to age 5

3. A few will approve with the current age under 30

4. Teen onset with good control and adult under 40

5. Adult onset type 1 with insured still under 40 and no complications

6. The most recent was a 57 year old diagnosed type 1 twelve years prior. A1c’s in the low 7’s and no complications. This one brought quotes comparable, if not a bit lower than type 2 with the same age and age of diagnosis.

This batch of approvals covers a lot of territory, almost leaving the only area (I’m sorry) juvenile onset who are still children, the one area that I currently don’t have an insurer for. I’ve been hunting for that one company that will step up to the plate for kids with type 1 for at least 5 years and while I still don’t have any takers I keeping beating on doors and continue to make progress in every other type 1 category.

I recently worked with a customer that, while we didn’t get any offers, was a truly interesting type 1 scenario. Diabetes had ruined a kidney and he was able to get a transplant, but at the same time they gave him a new pancreas from the same donor. At this point, several months post surgery, he no longer has diabetes. The new pancreas is doing exactly what a pancreas should do. While insurers are not quite ready to embrace pancreas transplants, I can see a day as these procedures improve and the results become more bombproof, where this scenario could be a transplant life insurance approval. We are currently able to get kidney transplant life insurance approvals, especially if donated by a close relative so we’re part of the way there.

Bottom line. All in all there are just some awesome things happening in impaired risk life insurance underwriting. 5-10 years ago many of these approvals would have been completely impossible, but, at least some things in our world are headed in the right direction. If you have any questions or feel you have received unfair treatment for your well controlled type 1 diabetes life insurance application, call or email me directly. My name is Ed Hinerman. Let’s talk.