Alcohol history and life insurance

Most people can stop reading here

Applications ask about alcohol, and for the majority of applicants the answer causes nothing to happen. Ordinary moderate drinking is not a rating factor and does not need managing.

The questions exist because heavy use, dependence and their consequences are genuinely relevant to mortality. Underwriters are looking for that, not for whether you have wine with dinner.

What insurers ask, and what they can see

The application asks how much you drink and how often, and whether you have ever been advised to reduce, been treated, or attended a program.

The paramedical adds something the application does not: a blood panel including liver function markers. Elevated liver enzymes, and GGT in particular, can indicate heavy alcohol use, and an abnormal result will prompt questions regardless of what the application said.

This is worth knowing because it means the picture is partly verified. It also means a raised marker from a different cause, and there are several, is worth explaining rather than leaving unaddressed. Where your own doctor has investigated an abnormal result and found another explanation, having that in your records is useful.

Impaired driving convictions appear on provincial driving records, which insurers can obtain.

A past problem versus a current one

This is the distinction that matters most, and the news for people in recovery is better than they usually expect.

Underwriters assess a history of alcohol dependence primarily on how long it has been. A documented period of sustained sobriety is one of the strongest things such a file can contain, and the longer it runs the more the assessment shifts.

What supports it: engagement with treatment or a program, regular follow-up appearing in medical records, stable employment, and normal liver markers in current bloodwork. That combination describes a resolved situation rather than an ongoing one, and it is assessed that way.

Shorter periods of sobriety are generally met with a postponement rather than a decline. Insurers usually want to see a defined stretch of time, and coming back after it is a normal path.

Current heavy drinking, or a relapse within a recent period, is assessed on the current position.

Impaired driving

Assessed separately from the health question, and treated seriously.

Underwriters look at how many convictions, how recently, and whether they form part of a wider pattern including other serious driving offences. A single conviction many years ago in an otherwise clean record is a different matter from a recent one or a repeat.

The effect can appear on price and, in some cases, on availability, and it can persist for several years after the conviction. It is checked rather than taken on trust, so it is not a question to leave off the application. See travel, work and hobbies for how driving records feature more generally.

What travels with it

Alcohol and mental health conditions frequently appear together, and where both are present underwriters assess them as one picture rather than two entries. The combination carries more weight than either alone. See depression and anxiety.

The same applies where other substances are involved, which is assessed on the terms in substance use and recovery.

Liver disease, where it has developed, becomes a significant condition in its own right and shifts the assessment substantially.

Disclosing it

Answer honestly. The verification here is better than for most lifestyle questions: bloodwork, medical records and driving records all contribute.

For someone in recovery, the instinct to leave it off is understandable and it is the wrong move. A documented recovery is something underwriters can assess favourably. An omission discovered later is a misstatement on the application, with the consequences in leaving something off the application.

If you are unsure how to describe past treatment, describe it plainly with dates. Specificity helps.

Applying

Have the details ready if any apply: when the problem was, what treatment you had, when your last drink was, whether you attend any ongoing program, and any impaired driving convictions with dates.

Where sobriety is recent, ask what period a given insurer wants to see before applying, so a postponement is expected rather than discouraging.

Insurers do differ here, particularly on how long a period of sobriety they require, which makes it another case where a single application is a poor test of the market.

The boundary

Nothing on this page is health information or guidance about alcohol. It describes how insurance applications are assessed. If any of this raises something for you, your doctor is the right person, and that conversation matters regardless of any policy.