I mentioned on a previous commentary that According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 37.3 million Americans have diabetes. That’s 1 out of 10 Americans! 96 million people in the United States have prediabetes.
There are three types of diagnoses for diabetes prediabetic, Type one diabetes, and Type two diabetes.
Prediabetes means that your blood sugar is higher than normal. It’s not high enough to make you a type 2 diabetic, but without changes to your lifestyle, you are at a high risk of developing type 2 diabetes. The most positive news about being prediabetic is that it can be reversable. This can be helped by a healthy diet and physical activity. Some situations may even require medications.
Type one diabetes is a is thought to be an auto-immune reaction. Meaning the body attacks itself by mistake and this reaction stops the body from making insulin. Because of this type one diabetes isn’t caused by lifestyle choices. It can be caused by a trigger for people who have certain genes.
Type two diabetes happens when your body doesn’t respond normally to insulin. Your pancreas makes more insulin to try to make your body cells respond, but eventually your pancreas can’t keep up and your blood sugar rises, which will eventually be the first step into prediabetics.
Diabetes affects your physical, mental, and emotional states. With no cure for diabetes, your ultimate goal for the disease is to manage it and to try and make sure it doesn’t get worse.
So now that we understand a little bit about diabetes, how does it affect your life insurance?
If you already had a policy before you were diagnosed with diabetes, you should have nothing to worry about. Life insurance doesn’t change when your health changes. One thing you want to keep in mind is if you have a term policy, it’s eventually going to end. One way to stay insurable is to see if you can convert your policy to a permanent one. You can do this by calling your insurance company and asking if they have a convertibility rider.
If you do not have a life insurance policy before you’re diagnosed with diabetes, it’s not too late. But you do want to try as soon as possible to get a policy in place. The more controlled your diabetes are, the better the chances are that you’ll be able to get life insurance. Some of the things the companies are going to be looking at are your A1C levels, all of your other ailments, and your life expectancy.
When it comes to diabetes and life insurance, we feel the best way to find out if you can get insurance is by speaking with an agent and applying.