Life insurance and type 1 diabetes

[PrincessStorm]

My partner has type 1 diabetes, and it's ben very poorly controlled, though he is now trying to improve.

We have just taken on a 25 year mortgage, and he is trying to get life insurance. He has been told he can't get it, as he's too high risk due to his diabetes.

This scares me a bit - obviously I don't want anything to happen to him, but if it did, I would be in an awful position as I couldn't pay th mortgage alone.

My question is, does anyone have any experience with getting life insurance for a type 1? It seems unbelievable to me that he can't get it, even for non-diabetic related issues.

DH has diabetes and has life insurance with ESMI and it's cheaper than mine

When e looked they wanted £200 a month - we didn't go for it. Dh is insured threw work to 4 x salary which would be enough to kill the mortgage and put some In the bank.

We have life insurance with Legal and General and they didn't care when I told them I was T1 Diabetic, I was diagnosed after taking out the policy though and we just have decreasing cover to pay off the mortgage rather than critical illness etc.

I have T1 and associated complications, as well as family history of early cancer deaths and one or two other issues which mean that LI would either be impossible to get or possibly available at a colossal premium (more than I earn, partly because my health makes FT work impossible, but that's another vicious circle).

My big concern would be that, however much LI companies love to sell it to you as 'peace of mind' and 'guaranteed security for your family' etc, the reality is that insurance companies don't want to pay out and will do anything they possibly can to avoid it.

My thinking (and I may be wrong) is that, having taken £200-£300 a month in premiums, they would exclude 'pre-existing conditions' from any payout. The problem is, as I'm sure you're very well aware, diabetes has a habit of taking over your whole body before long to a greater or lesser extent. Pretty much anything that could ultimately be ruled as the cause of death would have been statistically more likely for somebody with diabetes and thus considered to be related to or caused by a 'pre-existing' condition.

It's rubbish, but I'd rather not pay the premiums in the mistaken belief that my family would receive a payout - much better to know the score and never raise hopes in the first place.

My other big concern is all the talks about the NHS eventually becoming unsustainable and being replaced by some kind of personal healthcare insurance scheme. If that happens, I'm well and truly stuffed; I really feel for people in other countries in this position and wonder how they manage it. I know a lot of people in the USA end up stuck in dead-end jobs with appalling working conditions chiefly for the reason that, without the job, they would have no health cover.