Life Insurance for High Blood Pressure; Ask the Expert

Simon Huften

Simon Huften is the President of Life Insurance Canada.com Inc.

You may be pleasantly surprised to find out that high blood pressure (HBP) probably won’t affect your life insurance premiums. That’s because you probably don’t have high blood pressure, but instead have regular blood pressure controlled with medication.

If your BP is controlled, what you have is regular blood pressure controlled with medication. And other than exceptional cases, the life insurance companies are actually OK with that.

If you already have a life insurance policy in force and later develop HBP, it won’t affect your existing life insurance policy which is already fixed in place. The consideration would be for new life insurance applications.

For new life insurance applications, the life insurance company will absolutely want information on and investigate your BP readings and treatment. However requesting that information does not mean they will rate you or decline you – it just means they need the information to evaluate your application. They will also likely request a report from your doctor in order to get specific readings.

If you are in your late 40’s, 50’s or older, and taking regular medication for your condition, then you should expect to receive standard or regular rates. In our experience, this covers the majority of people with high blood pressure. 

Where the companies may have concerns and investigate further is if you have blood pressure concerns at a younger age, such as into your 30’s. The second time life insurance companies will have reservations is if your medication is not stable and controlled. If you’ve been taking the medication for less than 6 months it may not yet be fully stable and the life insurance companies may defer coverage until 6 months of stable readings has passed. As well, if you frequently ignore your medications or don’t keep the readings under control you may also find the life insurance company declining to offer coverage (because in that case, you actually do have high blood pressure, as opposed to regular blood pressure controlled by medication).

If you’re in your mid to late 40’s and your BP is well controlled and stable, expect little concern from the life insurance company. If you’re younger or your BP is not stable or controlled then we would suggest that prior to applying, that we would contact an insurance company underwriter to get an estimate before doing the actual paperwork.

If you have high blood pressure and are seeking life insurance, feel welcome to contact us or request a quote.