Life insurance and depression. Wondering whether to go to the doctor or not....?

Question

Hi, I believe that I am suffering from mild to moderate depression and was planning to go to a psychiatrist about it tomorrow. But it has just occurred to me that it might have a big impact upon a life insurance application that I am planning to make over the next couple of months.

Assuming that I am diagnosed with some kind of depression, but not major, and am prescribed some kind of light drug to deal with it, can anyone tell me what kind of impact that might have on my application? I am not sure whether to go ahead with my doctors appointment at this stage. I'm not suicidal or anything, but I am pretty down! I have never had any other medical conditions that might affect my application.

Thanks so much.

Answer 1

It will all depend on how many people have died as a result of being in your situation. Usually premiums won't go up unless something is a major risk (like a bad heart condition or if you go skydiving without a parachute every month).

Here is the other thing... you can always shop around for different life insurance products. Not all companies are the same.

Answer 2

It probably will affect your premiums, depending on the outcome (assuming you get a hard diagnosis from your shrink).  Just about every conceivable medical condition and treatment comes out in the life insurance application process.

Just FYI, the term policies I've dealt with have a 2 year suicide exclusion (meaning of course you don't get a penny if you off yourself before your policy is 2 years old).

Things like smoking and body composition will probably have a greater impact on your premiums than this psych issue.  And it's not what you asked, but make absolutely sure you get TERM insurance, not that whole-life trash, no matter what your agent says!

Answer 3

Generally speaking, life insurance applications require medical disclosures and access to your medical records.  So yes, it could affect your application.

Answer 4

It will probably mean an increase in your rates.

Answer 5

It'll affect your rates a lot.  Going from the top rate to just the 2nd best rate is about a 20-30% jump for just minor items.

Use the quote engine on my site to get quotes (no private information required for use) and you can plug in the top 4 rate categories and you'll see how the rates are affected.   There's not enough info to guage what would happen to the rates.  But, at the same time if you'll never had a problem and they put you on a brand new drug they may just decline you until you've been on the drug for a while.

http://insurancepickle.com/life-insuranc...

Answer 6

It depends on the insurance company and their underwriting. Ask your insurance agent, they should be able to tell you exactly how much it will affect your illustrated premiums.

they can even show you which medications will change you premiums by how much (i.e. zoloft may give one table rating where prozac may give you a more expensive rating)