In 2022, Jobi, a long Covid survivor, was shopping for life insurance. She told the agent her medical history, which included a brain tumor. But when she mentioned long Covid, the conversation changed abruptly.
“He said, ‘Well, we can stop right there,” she said in a phone interview. “We will not find anybody that will insure you.”
Karyn Bishof, a long Covid survivor, patient advocate and founder of the Covid-19 Longhauler Advocacy Project, told us Jobi is not alone. Many people whose lives have been devastated by long Covid have found they now have to deal with one more obstacle in their lives.
“People within the long Covid community have lost their life insurance policies when they lost their jobs due to long Covid. Many who have sought new life insurance policies have been denied due to long Covid,” she said. “There is no help for us and our families now, and we can’t even make sure our kids and families will be okay when we pass away.”
A year before she applied for life insurance, Jobi, her husband and her son all tested positive for Covid. Within a few weeks, her husband and son recovered, but Jobi never did.
“I have not had one day where I have not had some symptoms or more illness,” said Jobi, who spoke on condition that only her first name be used
Some people with long Covid experience a remission after their first encounter with the virus, only to have symptoms return a few weeks later.
“Since the day Covid came, I never had a lapse of [symptoms]. It has been a continuous thing.”
Financial hit from Covid
Jobi and her husband live in Washington state and have always had life insurance to protect their son, should the worst happen. But by the time she got long Covid, they had some financial changes and in 2022, they started shopping for a new plan. Her husband was retiring and her son had grown into an adult and they decided they didn’t need as much life insurance.
Also, long Covid had caused the family to take a financial hit, so a smaller policy would be more affordable.
“It has been devastating to say the least,” she said. “I battled with Social Security for two and a half years before I was accepted for Social Security Disability Insurance.”
The couple found an agent to help them find a plan that would be the most cost-effective.
“After the first visit we had with them, I brought up that I have a brain tumor. And I said and I do have long Covid.”
Jobi’s mind swirled with questions.
“I said I already have life insurance, can they knock me off of that?”
“He says, Well, I can’t say that for certain, but I would not let your insurance lapse because you’re not going to find anybody that would allow you to do that.”
Not the long Covid diagnosis but all the effects in combination
Heather is a budget analyst in Michigan whose employer offered a life insurance benefit. But she had a problem with her coverage after getting long Covid in 2020.
“I was either trying to increase [my coverage] or I was trying” to opt into the benefit “when I hadn’t taken it the year before,” she said in a phone interview. “My memory is not good – I have long Covid.”
Heather, like millions of other long Covid survivors, has developed brain fog and memory problems from the condition. She said she can’t remember all the details from her experience of trying to change her coverage, but her story still makes an important point: that a variety of technicalities can affect long-haulers’ coverage.
“I took a visit to the hospital and I checked too many boxes because of all the health issues I’ve developed,” she said. “I mean, ‘long Covid’ wasn’t a question there, but all the medical things I was going through – that disqualified me.”
List of symptoms
Heather gave ClearHealthCosts a list.
“Between being hospitalized for the pulmonary embolism. Then I had like an instant failure of my gallbladder with no warning, which was another surgery,” she said. “A hospital stay for a blood clot – I think probably the majority of us long haulers have the micro clots – and yeah,’ you have too many health issues for life insurance.’”
Back in 2023, ClearHealthCosts reported on another long Covid patient who was also declined coverage, not for his long Covid diagnosis, but rather for the health issues that resulted from the strain long Covid imposed on the body.
A patient in the Pacific Northwest, who asked us not to use his name to protect his privacy, shared his denial letter from September of 2023 with us. It said:
“After careful consideration, we are unable to issue you a policy for which you applied. As a result, you have no coverage under this application with [redacted] Life Insurance Company.”
They explain why:
“We based our decision on records from Dr. [redacted] with SOB [shortness of breath], memory issues post COVID.”
The statement pointed out that he was denied because of post-Covid shortness of breath and memory issues, not simply because of Covid. The source of his medical problems was not a concern to the company. Caused by Covid or by something else, these things made the company feel he was too risky to insure.
But no matter what reason is cited, activists in the long Covid community say it can be a frustrating setback for long Covid patients and their families. Especially after all the other difficulties of long Covid.
“Denying life insurance to individuals suffering from long Covid not only exacerbates their distress but also sends a disheartening message about our society’s commitment to compassion and fairness,” Bishof said. “As a patient advocate, I urge insurance providers to reassess their policies and embrace a more inclusive approach that recognizes the ongoing challenges faced by long Covid patients. It’s imperative that we support and protect these individuals, not isolate them further.”
Worried for daughter
“Obviously it’s life insurance, so the impact is not on me. If the policy is paying out, I’m not here, right?” she said. “It was more a concern for my daughter.”
Heather’s daughter is a young adult, but that doesn’t stop her worrying.
“If something happened to me. I always want to make sure that she’d have not just enough to cover funeral expenses, but enough for all the things I planned to help her out with in life as she started off,” she said. “I know she would be a basket case if I died, so I was trying to make sure she would be financially secure in what would be a really rough time in her life.”
For many survivors, trouble with life insurance isn’t the most severe long Covid burden.
“My greatest concern now is trying to salvage my health,” Heather said.
“I’m single so I don’t haven’t had a choice but to continue working, because I would be homeless otherwise,” she said. “And I don’t necessarily have the energy to work, but I force myself because I need [health] insurance.”
‘Yet another battle’
As someone with long Covid herself, Bishof was turned down when she applied for life insurance and still hasn’t found a company that will give her a policy.
“As a patient enduring long Covid, the inability to secure life insurance feels like yet another battle in an already long fight,” she said. “This rejection not only undermines my efforts to safeguard my family’s future but also signals a lack of understanding and support for those of us living with chronic conditions post-pandemic.”
Bishof also said something needs to change.
“We need policies that recognize our challenges and ensure we are not excluded from essential protections.”
Not everyone gets turned down
Patients and experts told us that even severe long Covid is not necessarily a dealbreaker for life insurance. It depends on the insurance company and sometimes the type of plan. Sara, a long-hauler in Indiana, told us about her experience.
“I had no problem getting final expense coverage on the day I applied,” Sara said in a phone interview. “The company I found had pretty few disqualifiers for any kind of coverage.”
Sara is a long hauler, and her husband is actually a life insurance agent, licensed in Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania. She said she believes her experience is not uncommon.
“People with long Covid aren’t generally on many medications,” she said. The medical questionnaires “are generally based on what medications you’re taking – at least the way they cover people at Lincoln Heritage,” where her husband works, she said
But Sara said she has heard about long haulers being offered a slightly nonstandard plan if there are many unknowns about the short-term risk of death.
“They may end up ‘modified,’” she said. “At Lincoln, modified means there’s kind of a two-year waiting period where you’re covered but” your beneficiaries “wouldn’t see a full payout. You would only get what you’ve paid in. Then after two years, you would move to full coverage.”
What you can do: An agent’s do’s and don’ts
Matt Schmidt, an industry veteran and founder of Diabetes Life Solutions, an agency that specializes in helping people with chronic conditions get life insurance, offered some thoughts.
He had four main points for shopping for life insurance as a long hauler, tips that can also be useful for anyone with a nonstandard medical history.
- You don’t have to take no for an answer.
Schmidt said he has seen many people with long Covid get life insurance pretty easily – with the caveat that of course every case is different. If one company, or even several companies, turn you down, that doesn’t mean your cause is lost – even if the insurer turns you down for medical reasons.
He told us there are a number of reasons an application can be denied, and often a denial can be resolved with a little extra investigating. And often, these rejections are errors.
“I recently had a doctor with long Covid in Wisconsin who came to us after being declined five times previously, ” he said. “I told him I think there might be some” wrong information in his medical report.
Schmidt dug a little deeper into the client’s background report – something that nobody did when the client applied previously. It turned out that he had not been rejected because of long Covid, but because of a mistake in his prescription history that made the algorithm think he had untreated Lyme disease — a serious condition that a life insurance company might consider high risk. But the client never had this condition.
“Untreated Lyme disease, that was an automatic decline,” he said.
After realizing the problem, Schmidt composed and sent a letter to the insurance company to clear up the mistake.
“Some companies need a letter and some allow me to send like a direct message to an underwriter,” he said. “Basically, I put in lots of extra information that the company wouldn’t be able to tell with those background reports or medical records. I’m trying to connect the dots for them.”
The letter showed the insurer that the client was not as high risk as they thought. And it turned out, his long Covid wasn’t a problem for the insurer. The client got a plan that met all his needs.
Schmidt said the time and effort for compiling this letter was almost negligible, calling it a “little thing” and “very easy.”
“I put in a little more effort than other insurance professionals, presented health history and notes on the treatment for long Covid, and he was approved with no problems,” Schmidt said.
- Be wary of overly speedy, automated “drive-thru” application policies.
Schmidt said much of the background misinformation that leads to invalid rejections is the result of overreliance on AI algorithms that evaluate clients’ histories. While using AI to make coverage decisions is cheaper and faster than having a human do it, this is often a source of mistakes.
“A lot of companies are now utilizing AI algorithms. What we’re seeing is a person will apply for coverage and on paper they should have no problems being approved,” he said. “The applicant is in great health, a great height and weight, not a high risk. But something is coming up in their medical background.”
The health background reports show prescriptions, procedures and treatments. But oftentimes, those reports aren’t accurate.
“Maybe they have a prescription drug in there that you never took,” Schmidt said. “So it’s automatically getting flagged and declined.”
When the client is declined, they may not be told what exactly sank their application – with no recourse because they don’t even know there’s an error in their record.
“With some of these direct-to-consumer websites, there’s no help,” he said. “You apply, then here’s the offer if there is one. Then there’s no further guidance.”
“So if you get declined, you’re back to square one. You’re like, What the heck happened? What’s going on? No one is telling them what came up in that background check.”
Schmidt said his doctor client with long Covid in Wisconsin was frustrated at getting no help from the companies he applied to.
“The first thing the doctor asked was ‘why didn’t these other people tell me this?’” he said. “Maybe they didn’t know how to do this – no one’s ever trained them to kind of explain things like this to an underwriter.”
“I said ‘I’m glad you kept trying and finally found me.’”
- Sometimes professional guidance can help.
Matt Schmidt is what is called an independent life insurance agent. That means he has access to several different insurers, and is not beholden to a single company.
“If anyone has a history I would recommend them working with a professional,” he said. “Someone who can actually shop your case around to more than one insurance underwriter or one company.”
“One company or 10 companies might decline you, but another one may not have any issues at all with your health history,” he said.
“I don’t want to knock what I can call the State Farm agents of the world who only sell State Farm, or the Northwestern Mutual to the world who only sell Northwestern Mutual,” he said.
Schmidt said these are not necessarily inferior companies or insurance products, they are just limited in what they can offer.
“When you have a unique health profile, such as a history of diabetes, long Covid, etc., you’re probably going to want to work with that type of professional who can cast the big net, , with all those companies to see what can be offered and at what prices.”
- What if I get declined trying to add coverage to the plan I already have? Keep shopping.
We asked Schmidt about Heather, the budget analyst in Michigan who was told she couldn’t increase her coverage now that she had long Covid.
“If someone already had a policy, and years later they need to add more coverage, of course the underwriters want to see some updated health history,” he said. “And the company might say we don’t feel comfortable offering any more coverage, which is a shame, but they have parameters and guidelines that they have to work within.”
He said if your current company isn’t offering more coverage, there is nothing stopping you from simply getting an additional plan from another insurance carrier.
“I’ll use myself as an example. I’m 43. I took out my first insurance policy when I was 23, before I had diabetes,” he said. “I now have four insurance policies. I basically took another one when I got married and each time I had a kid.”
He said that he has three different insurance companies that provide his four policies, something he said is not a disadvantage.
“As my life changed, and my health changed, and my financial guidelines changed.”
