Type 1 diabetes and insurance underwriting

New Zealand insurers assess type 1 as a distinct risk with its own questionnaire and its own rating basis. The practical effect is that the answers a person with type 1 gets bear little relation to what someone with type 2 is offered, and applicants who read general diabetes guidance often arrive with the wrong expectations in both directions.

The core of the assessment is the management record. Underwriters want to see a long, consistent, well-documented pattern of review and stability, and they want it from a clinician rather than from the applicant. A file that includes a recent specialist letter is treated very differently from one that consists of a tick box and a date.

The questions follow the diagnosis rather than the label, and they go further than the type 2 set.

• Age at diagnosis and years since.
• Current management approach, including whether a pump or continuous monitoring is used.
• Frequency of review and which clinician provides it.
• Recent results, usually across several time points rather than one.
• Whether any related eye, kidney, nerve or circulatory findings are recorded.
• Any hospital admissions related to the condition, and when.

Evidence commonly requested

• A specialist or diabetes clinic report, requested more often than for type 2.
• Full GP notes rather than a summary, in many cases.
• A run of recent laboratory results rather than a single figure.

What underwriters look at over time is duration with stability — years of consistent review, no new related findings, no admissions, and no long gaps in the record. Because the rating tables for type 1 have moved considerably over the past decade as reinsurers have revised their view, a decline or a heavy loading from several years ago is worth revisiting rather than treating as settled.

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

• That a type 2 answer tells you nothing about what you will be offered on type 1.
• Whether an exclusion covers the diabetes only or all related conditions.
• That gaps in the review record read poorly, even where nothing was wrong.
• That income protection may need to be replaced with TPD or trauma cover rather than fought for.
• That an older decline should be retested, because appetite in this area has changed.

Every New Zealand insurer writes applications involving type 1 diabetes 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.

• The gap between the most and least generous insurer on type 1 is large enough to change the entire outcome of an application.
• An adviser can approach several underwriters anonymously with a summary and compare indications before any record exists.
• Where income protection is unavailable, an adviser can build an alternative structure from TPD, trauma and mortgage repayment cover.
• An adviser will make sure a specialist report is in the file at the outset rather than four weeks in.
• Terms declined some years ago are worth re-testing, and an adviser will know whether the market has moved.

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.