Mental Health & Life Insurance: Can I Get Coverage With a Mental Health Condition?

When you apply for life insurance, it can feel like the most intimate details of your life are on display.

Most life insurance is medically underwritten, which means that the insurer looks at your health conditions when deciding whether to offer you coverage and at what price. As a result, you’ll be asked questions about your health and lifestyle.

While no-exam life insurance offers the possibility of skipping the medical exam, even term life insurance with accelerated underwriting might require you to undergo a health exam in some cases, especially if the underwriters have questions about your health (or mental health) history.

If you’re one of the millions of Americans living with mental illness, this may be an intimidating prospect. Not only will you be asked to discuss a deeply personal topic, you may worry that you’ll automatically face higher premiums. The reality is a bit more complicated.

Will a Mental Illness Increase My Life Insurance Costs?

In general, individuals who are riskier to insure—those who are older, have certain health conditions, or have a predilection for dangerous hobbies—will pay higher premiums for life insurance.

But even though that idea seems relatively straightforward, life insurance pricing is actually quite complex. Underwriters take a variety of circumstances into account when figuring out how much a policy should cost, and no single factor is guaranteed to raise your premiums by a specific amount.

When life insurance underwriters consider an applicant with a mental health condition, they may think about these factors:

• Severity/duration of an illness, and whether it has recurred

• Whether a patient is undergoing treatment, and if so, what kind of treatment

• Personal or family history of mental illness or suicide

• Associated medical complaints or conditions

• Employment status

• Age of onset

• Social history

Of course, mild depression after losing a loved one is a very different situation than severe lifelong schizophrenia. There are many types of mental illness, and various conditions can present across a wide spectrum. For certain minor or very well controlled conditions, you might be able to qualify for a preferred rate. In other cases, mental health issues can have an impact on rates.

What if I Have Depression or Anxiety?

Some common mental health conditions include anxiety, depression and bipolar disorder. The severity of a condition is an important factor for underwriters, as is the amount of time an applicant has been living with an illness. If a condition is situational or temporary (for example, anxiety about job interviews or depression following a divorce), that will be factored into an underwriter’s calculations.

What if I Fail to Disclose a Mental Illness on My Life Insurance Application?

It may be hard to see why certain mental health issues matter for your life insurance application—after all, social anxiety may give you sweaty palms at a party, but it’s hardly life-threatening. If you’re applying in summer, it might not be top of mind that you’re prone to seasonal depression in winter months. But it’s important to be up-front about all aspects of your health. Take the time to answer all questions on your application thoughtfully and make sure you don’t miss information an underwriter needs to know.

Your life insurance contract relies on a complete and accurate representation of your overall risk profile, including your health. If you fail to disclose a mental illness, or any health condition, your policy could be rescinded.

Underwriting a life insurance policy involves a lot of information-gathering. In addition to your application, underwriters also gather medical records and medication histories. In some cases, they’ll fact-check an application via the Medical Information Bureau, or MIB. The MIB uses information from previous insurance applications to verify certain aspects of your medical history.

There may even be a chance that providing more information in your application can actually work in your favor. Understanding (and underwriting) mental illness isn’t a matter of “one size fits all.” The experience of a mental health condition is very individual. The impact your condition has on your daily life and the tools you use to manage your health can be completely different from another person with the same category of diagnosis. With clear information, a life insurance company may be able to process your application as smoothly as possible and find the policy fit that’s best suited to you.

How Can I Mitigate the Impact of My Diagnosis on My Life Insurance Rate?

Because underwriters look at more than just an applicant’s diagnosis, there are steps you might be able to take that may make a difference to life insurance costs. Following your prescribed treatment, keeping up with day-to-day tasks and employment and steering clear of alcohol or recreational drugs can be positive indications that you’re managing your health well.

If you’re wondering how your mental health will affect your premiums, there’s no easy answer. Some people may see minimal impact on their rates, some may qualify for life insurance at higher premiums and some people’s mental health condition may be deemed too risky for the life insurance company to issue a policy. But the choice to apply for life insurance should be a simple one—if someone relies on your income (or your labor, if you’re a stay-at-home parent or caretaker) life insurance is an important way to help safeguard your family’s financial future.

Fabric exists to help young families master their money. Our articles abide by strict editorial standards.

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