Life Insurance During Pregnancy & Complications
Yes, pregnant women can purchase life insurance during the first two trimesters of the pregnancy. With certain carriers, expecting mothers can get preferred ratings, if they haven’t had any complications. The two most common types of complications are gestational diabetes, or pregnancy-induced diabetes, and gestational high blood pressure. Women with these conditions during pregnancy will have a hard time getting insured.
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For example, I recently helped a pregnant mother with minimal gestational diabetes. We put it out to bid to all the carriers. We got a decline from everyone except one carrier, who offered standard table 4. Everyone else said we would have to wait until 6-8 weeks after the baby’s birth until they would offer their best rates.
4% of all pregnant women get gestational diabetes, and 8% of women will experience some high blood pressure (hypertension). But the majority of women enter pregnancy healthy and remain so until delivering the baby. Insuring these women is easy, unless they had complications with a previous pregnancy. In this case, most carriers will not make an offer of life insurance to the prospective buyer. Previous complications that make a pregnant woman uninsurable include gestational diabetes and high blood pressure, sometimes referred to as hypertension. A more serious progression of hypertension is preeclampsia. All these or a previous c-section or cesarean birth will prevent pregnant women from purchasing life insurance while they’re pregnant.
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My recommendation… buy before any of these complications possibly develop. Gestational diabetes will not typically develop until the second trimester, but sometimes as early as 20 weeks, and the same time frame applies to gestational hypertension. Pregnant women have the best chance of getting great rates if they apply for life insurance during the first trimester.
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Hello Chris
My wife and I are shopping for life insurance and my wife is pregnant with our second chilld. The baby is due Nov 6th 2015. I got a preferred plus rating and my wife was given a standard rating since she has gestational diabetes. Also her dad is diabetic and her mother passed away at age 42 with non-genetic disease. So our agent is pressuring us to take her policy too as he says we can never get a better rating for her even after childbirth. I am thinking of waiting 6-8 months for my wife to try an get a better rating. What do you think is the best strategy for us in this situation?
Thanks for your advice.
-Gopala
Hi Gopala,
I’ve forwarded your information to Cliff Pendell to help you with your insurance needs.