Anxiety and insurance underwriting

Anxiety reaches underwriters constantly, often in a mild and clearly bounded form — a difficult period, a short course of medication, some counselling, and nothing since. Underwriters have a question set designed to establish exactly that shape, and a well-answered application in that situation frequently produces full life cover and a comparatively narrow restriction elsewhere.

As with any mental health disclosure, the common outcome on income protection is an exclusion. That is a category-level pricing response to claims experience, applied across a great many applications. It removes cover for mental health claims and leaves the rest of the policy fully functional, which is a far better outcome than no cover at all.

Precision helps here. A bare tick against anxiety gives the underwriter nothing to distinguish your file from the most serious version of it.

• When it began, whether it related to a specific event, and when it resolved.
• Whether a formal diagnosis was made.
• What treatment was given, including counselling and any medication.
• Whether medication continues, and if not, when it stopped.
• Whether there have been repeat episodes.
• Whether any time off work was taken.

Evidence commonly requested

• A GP report covering consultations and prescribing.
• A counsellor or specialist report in some cases.

What underwriters look at over time is whether the episode was bounded and resolved, how long since treatment ended, whether there has been recurrence, and whether work was affected. A short situational episode several years ago sits at one end of the range and an ongoing pattern with time off work at the other, and the terms offered differ accordingly. Where an exclusion has been applied and a long clear period has followed, asking for a review is reasonable.

These are the details that decide whether the cover does what you expected. Read them before you compare on price.

• That a situational, resolved episode should be described as such rather than left as a bare disclosure.
• Whether the exclusion offered covers stress and related claims as well as anxiety specifically.
• That the prescribing record reaches the underwriter regardless of what you write on the form.
• That current medication generally means a more cautious assessment than medication long stopped.
• That exclusion wording varies between insurers and is worth comparing before you accept.

Every New Zealand insurer writes applications with a mental health history to its own wording, and the words are where the money is. Two policies that look identical on price can pay very differently when it matters. Closing that gap is the entire job of an adviser.

• Some insurers word mental health exclusions far more narrowly than others, and that difference is not published.
• An adviser can pre-assess anonymously to find which insurer would apply the least restrictive terms.
• Supplying a clear chronology at application often produces a better result than a one-line disclosure.
• Where income protection is restricted, an adviser can check what TPD and trauma still deliver.

There are three ways to buy life cover in New Zealand, and they are not equivalent. You can buy direct from one insurer, which means you see one product range and one underwriting appetite. You can buy through your bank, which usually means a single insurer’s product sold under the bank’s brand, often with narrower definitions. Or you can go through an adviser, who quotes several insurers at once and is required to put your interests first.

The premium you pay is the same either way. Insurers build adviser commission into their pricing whether or not an adviser is involved, so going direct does not get you a discount — it just removes the person whose job is to argue your corner at application and at claim time.

• An adviser can see which insurer is currently taking your health history on standard terms, and which one will load or exclude it.
• An adviser can structure cover across two insurers if that produces a better outcome than putting everything with one.
• An adviser handles the underwriting back-and-forth, and is the person who chases the claim when a family is least able to.
• An adviser has to document why the recommendation suits you, which is a written record you can hold them to.

We are a referral service, not an insurer. We do not quote premiums and we do not sell policies. What we do is put you in front of one licensed New Zealand adviser who can compare the market properly.

1. 1

   You tell us what you are looking at

   The form takes about a minute. Nobody asks for your medical history on a web form — that conversation happens with the adviser, properly, and only once you have decided to proceed.

2. 2

   An adviser calls you

   A licensed New Zealand adviser talks through your situation: who depends on you, what you owe, what you already have in place, and what you are actually worried about.

3. 3

   They compare the market

   The adviser quotes across the major insurers, checks which of them will take your health history on the best terms, and puts the options side by side in writing.

4. 4

   You decide, in your own time

   There is no obligation and no cost to you. If the answer is that you already have enough cover, a good adviser will tell you that.