Alcohol Dependency & Life Insurance.
Alcohol Dependency & Life Insurance.
Life can be hard, and we all have our ways of coping and escaping. Sometimes…
Can you get life insurance if you are living with mental health difficulties?
Yes, it is possible to get life insurance.
As life insurance experts, we will find the right policy to protect you and your loved ones.
Your Guide to Mental Health Life Insurance.
Mental health should be viewed as a life-long journey, not a destination. Whether you suffer from anxiety, depression or another mental health condition, we can help you obtain a mental health life insurance plan. Get in touch with us today for free specialist advice so you can take that first step to protecting your loved ones’ futures.
How Mental Health Life Insurance Works.
When you get in touch with us, we will make sure each phone call is handled with the utmost care and empathy as we know that talking about your mental health can be difficult. If you prefer, you can start a live chat with us instead – we don’t use chatbots; instead, our experienced life insurance advisers are here to help you.
During our talks, we’ll start by asking you some questions about your general health and lifestyle:
- Your medical history (including existing conditions)
- Any medication taken during the past five years
- Your height and weight
- Your GP’s details
- Your lifestyle and hobbies
- Salary or other income
- Outgoings
These questions are required to ensure we get the best policy to suit your needs and that we know will pay out when needed.
A Quick Guide to Mental Health Life Insurance.
Step 1: Prepare all the necessary information about your mental health.
Step 2: Work out how much cover is required.
Step 3: Get in contact with a mental health life insurance expert.
Step 4: You may need to provide a GP report.
Step 5: Browse the available options and with advice from an expert, choose the correct cover for you.
Mental Health specific questions.
We promise that everything we discuss will stay between us, and you only have to tell us as much as you’re comfortable with.
- Have you been diagnosed with a specific condition?
- When were you first diagnosed?
- What are your usual symptoms, how often are you affected, and how severe are they?
- How do you manage and treat these symptoms?
- Have you ever been hospitalised due to your mental health?
In some circumstances, we may also need to ask if you’ve ever experienced suicidal thoughts, attempts or self-harm.
Obtaining life insurance, has many benefits. Lots of providers now offer value-added services to policyholders, such as access to counselling services or 24 hour virtual GPs appointments.
Critical Illness Cover.
If you have received a diagnosis for a mental illness, it is still possible to obtain critical illness cover. The success of your application may depend on a variety of factors such as whether your symptoms are under control. We will work with you to find critical illness cover to suit you.
A critical illness cover (CIC) policy works by paying out a tax-free lump sum if you are diagnosed with a critical illness defined under your policy wording. It’s often more cost-effective to get a joint policy that includes life insurance, critical illness and income protection into one easy payment. You could significantly boost your financial security for just a few extra pounds.
Most critical illness policies will cover:
- Cancer
- Stroke
- Liver or kidney failure
- Heart attack
- Multiple Sclerosis (MS)
- Major organ transplant
How to Claim.
We understand how hard it is to lose a loved one. That’s why we have provided some simple steps to help you understand the life insurance claims process:
Contact Your Broker/Provider
The easiest way to make a claim is to go through the insurance broker or provider you took the cover with. This not only takes the weight off your shoulders at this stressful time but also helps speed up the claim process.
Start the process via Call/Email/Post
Depending on the type of policy you have, ways to make a claim can vary. You will initiate the claim process either via telephone, email, or post for Life Insurance, Critical Illness Cover and Income Protection.
Send Required Information
Once the claim has been received your insurance provider will then request the necessary evidence in order to assess the claim. This can include but is not limited to death certificates, GP reports and specialist letters.
Income Protection.
Income protection is an insurance policy that pays out in monthly instalments if you are unable to work due to a mental health issue in the future. As 1 in 4 people experience a mental health condition in their lifetime, it can provide peace of mind and protect your finances should anything happen.
Some income protection plans may exclude payouts for specific issues relating to your mental health diagnosis as it will be classed as a pre-existing condition. If that’s the case, we’ll review your options so you know what you can do.
Case Studies.
Case study: Sandra is 30 years old. She’s seeking a 35-year policy with a maximum payout of £109,000. She has young child and wants to ensure their financial future is secure. For the last eleven years, Sandra has experienced bouts of mild depression and anxiety, which she manages through daily medication and regular counselling sessions.
Total cover amount: £109,000
Monthly premium cost: £5.84
Duration of policy: 35 years
Over 35 years, Sandra would only pay £70.08 per year or a total of £2,452.80 in exchange for a potential £109,000 payout for her child.
Case study: Phil is 28 years old. He works in the construction industry and has been diagnosed with an eating disorder. Phil was hospitalised for his condition in 2019. He is looking for a 70 year term policy valued at £250,000 for life insurance, ensuring his wife and children would be financially taken care of if something happened.
Total cover amount: £250,000
Monthly premium cost: £13.04
Duration of policy: 70 year level term
Phil would pay only £156.48 per year for a potential £250,000 payout for his wife, if Phil were to die and kept paying his monthly premiums.
Mental Health Life Insurance Costs.
Life insurance premiums are based on a level of risk. Therefore, if you have a mental health condition, you might find that your costs could be higher, depending on the severity of your condition.
For example, if you’ve recently sought treatment for your condition or been hospitalised due to your mental health, you may notice that your prices are higher. But if you only suffer mild symptoms or you’ve benefited from a period of stability, then your premiums will be lower.
That’s because insurers base their costs on how likely they think they will have to pay a claim. They will consider a number of factors including:
- Age
- General Health
- Smoking status
- Medical history – including dates of last treatment.
Our specialists are experienced in finding the perfect policy to suit a range of budgets and needs. We’ll go through the policy with you and offer advice where needed.
Frequently Asked Questions
We answer your most frequently asked questions.
Mental health life insurance is done on a case-by-case basis so no specific mental health condition is excluded. As life insurance experts, we find people with even the most complicated mental health diagnoses a policy that fits their needs.It’s extremely rare that we can’t help someone.
Every day, we arrange cover for people who live with a wide range of mental health conditions, including but not limited to:
- Addictive behaviours
- Anxiety
- Bipolar Disorder
- Borderline Personality Disorder
- Depression
- Eating Disorders
- Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
- Panic disorder
- Paranoia
- Post-natal depression
- Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
- Schizophrenia
- Specific phobias.
Get in touch with us and we will take the time to listen to you and find a life insurance or income protection plan that will help you and your family when needed.
This will depend on what each policy says. We will always review any specific exceptions with you and tell you when they may or may not apply. We won’t just leave you to read through your policy’s terms and conditions on your own. Instead, we’ll work closely with you to make sure you understand how your health could affect how much you could get from your policy (or not).
All mental health insurance plans have one clause that is the same. All providers will place a 12-month exclusion on suicide. This means your policy would not pay out if your family needed to claim within the first year due to suicide.
This depends on the type of condition and the severity of your symptoms.
Most of the time, it will be easy to find a suitable plan if you have mild symptoms that are easily manageable. If your symptoms are a little more complicated, your insurance company may want to know more about how they impact your day-to-day life and your treatment options.
All insurance companies will look at your most recent medical history when deciding whether or not to accept you for a policy. Different companies will have different levels of risk, and while some may worry that your condition makes you too much of a risk, another will be more than happy to provide you with cover.
By getting to know you, we’ll already have a good idea of the insurers that will offer you financial protection. We’ll do our best to match you to a firm with a great track record of providing suitable insurance for those affected by poor mental health.
We know you may be tempted to hide any mental health issues as you search for a policy but that could be the worst financial mistake you could make.
Being open and honest about your medical history (past and present) is essential – not just for making sure that you have the right policy in place but also because you want that reassurance that your plan will pay out when you need it to.
When it comes to mental health and life insurance, failing to disclose any relevant information could result in a number of different consequences. For example:
- Your insurance company may not pay out.
- Your policy will be invalid. Your provider can withdraw your plan if they find out you gave them false information or left out important information.
- You might have to pay a penalty fee.
- Your family could be sued.
- You could be charged with insurance fraud. Failing to disclose relevant information when taking out a policy is a crime under the Fraud Act 2006.
With so much at stake, it’s essential that you are open and honest on your application.
We want to start by reminding you that having a mental health diagnosis doesn’t mean that you won’t be able to take out life insurance. We see our role as a matchmaker. We want to match you to the right policy and the right insurer.
If you’ve been declined with one insurer, it’s because that balance wasn’t right. It wasn’t the right plan or company to take care of you and your family.
At The Insurance Surgery, we’ve helped 70% of people who had been turned down before find insurance. We manage this by listening to you. We get to know who you are, and we will listen to you to understand more about your medical history.
As problem solvers, we’ll figure out why a company may not have accepted your application, and we’ll find ways to overcome those issues. Often, by talking directly with an underwriter, we can help them accurately assess your risk level and find you the policy you deserve.All you’ve got to do is pick up the phone or use our live chat function and talk to one of our life insurance experts.
As an award-winning life insurance broker, with access to mental health products that are not available through main-stream insurers. The Insurance Surgery is the ideal to get the best life insurance for mental health.
We’ve helped people with a history of mental health conditions secure life insurance, critical illness insurance, and income protection for over 20 years.
We make finding specific mental health insurance plans easy because we have access to the whole market. This means we can get quotes from big-name insurers and smaller, more specialised insurers.
Everyone is different, but if you’ve had depression for a while and can prove that you’re taking care of it, you should be able to get depression life insurance cover.
If your depression is being controlled with medication, therapy, or a combination of both, there are lots of insurers that’ll offer you insurance.
No two people’s experience of depression is the same, though. That’s why we’ll get to know you as part of our personalised approach. With a good understanding of your cover needs, medical history and whole-market access, we’ll find you the right cover at the right price.
The more we know about you, the easier it will be to find the best insurance company for you. We believe that when it comes to mental health and life insurance, you should have access to a policy that will always look out for your best interests.
We take the time to explain what your mental health insurance options are and walk you through your policy options. You can ask us as many questions as you like. Taking a personal approach to your mental and physical health, we sift out any policies that are not 100% right to arrive at the best life insurance cover for you and your family.
This attention to detail will give you peace of mind that any policy will provide you and your family lasting financial protection. We can promise:
- We will discuss the differences between a whole-life policy and a term policy.
- We’ll help you discover how much cover you’ll need.
- We’ll also help you determine if you have any existing protections in place – you’d be surprised by how many people are unaware of any death-in-service benefits they are eligible for through their employer.
But more importantly, we carefully consider any exclusions that may apply based on your medical history and mental health diagnoses (if you have any). If you have a complex medical history, it won’t be a barrier to securing life insurance – so please do not worry that you could be declined.
We know the insurers to speak to for any complicated physical or mental health conditions, and we’re confident that we’ll be able to find you a suitable policy
Price Promise.
As an award-winning specialist Insurance Broker for those with medical conditions, high risk occupations or participating in extreme sports we will never be beaten on price.
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Useful Links.
Here at The Insurance Surgery, we have many years’ experience working with people with Mental Health Conditions. We will do our best to help you find what you need to protect you, your family or your business and we are never beaten on price.