Life insurance after a suicide attempt or self-harm

If you are in crisis right now, insurance is not the thing to be reading about. In Canada you can call or text 9-8-8 at any hour, from anywhere, and speak to someone. It is free and confidential.

Why this page exists

Very little is written honestly about this in Canada, and people with this history often assume they are permanently uninsurable and never apply.

That assumption is wrong. Insurers assess a history of self-harm on the same basis they assess other serious health events: how long ago it was, what has happened since, and whether the underlying situation is being managed. Coverage is regularly issued to people with this history.

The honest part is that it is assessed seriously, insurers want meaningful distance from the event, and a recent event will usually result in a postponement.

What insurers are actually weighing

Time. The most important factor. Risk of a further event is highest in the period immediately afterward and falls substantially with time. Underwriting reflects that directly. A recent event will normally mean a postponement rather than a decline, which is an instruction to come back rather than a permanent answer.

Whether it happened once or more than once. A single event is assessed very differently from a repeated pattern. Repeated events indicate the underlying situation has not settled, and insurers are correspondingly cautious.

The underlying condition, and whether it is treated. Self-harm is almost always connected to something: depression, bipolar disorder, trauma, substance use, or a period of acute crisis. Where that condition has been identified, is being treated, and has been stable, the file is much stronger. Where nothing was diagnosed or no treatment followed, an underwriter has less to work with.

Consistency of treatment and follow-up. Regular contact with a doctor or psychiatrist, and treatment taken without long gaps, appear in the records and are read as evidence of stability.

Hospital admissions. Their number and recency.

How you are functioning now. Working, living independently, maintaining relationships. These appear in a physician’s report and they carry real weight, because they describe the present rather than the past.

Whether substances were involved. Where alcohol or drugs were part of the event or the surrounding period, that is assessed alongside. See substance use and recovery.

Realistic outcomes

For a single event several years in the past, with the underlying condition diagnosed and treated, sustained stability since, no hospital admissions in that period and normal daily functioning, fully underwritten coverage is a realistic prospect. It may come with a rating, and it may not.

Closer to the event, or where there have been repeated events, a postponement is the likely outcome. Insurers will usually state how long they want to see.

Where full underwriting is not available, options remain:

Group coverage through an employer generally involves no medical questions up to a set level and depends on employment rather than health. See work coverage versus your own policy.

Simplified issue products ask a short set of questions, usually time-bounded around psychiatric hospitalization or treatment within a recent period. Depending on dates, these can be available when full underwriting is not.

Guaranteed issue asks nothing about health, at a smaller amount and with a waiting period at the start.

The suicide clause, which is a separate thing

This causes confusion, and it applies to everybody rather than to people with this history.

Almost every Canadian life insurance policy contains a suicide clause. If death by suicide occurs within the first two years of the policy, the insurer generally returns the premiums paid rather than paying the death benefit. After that period, most policies pay in full for any cause.

Two things follow. This clause is standard on every policy, whatever your history. And it runs from the date the policy is issued, so a policy held for many years is past it. Replacing a policy starts a fresh two years, which is one more reason to be careful about replacement. See the contestability period, which runs alongside it.

Disclosing it

You have to, and this is the hardest paragraph on the page to write and probably to read.

Applications ask about mental health treatment, hospital admissions and, on many forms, self-harm specifically. The questions are usually time-bounded.

The information is in your medical records, and insurers request those records routinely on files like this. An omission found later is a much more serious problem than the history itself, because it converts a health question into a question about the truthfulness of the application, and that is what puts a claim at risk. See leaving something off the application.

Disclosing this to a stranger on a form is genuinely difficult. It is also the version of events that protects the people you are buying the policy for.

How to approach applying

Work with someone who will handle it properly. This is not a file to submit blind to whichever insurer came up first.

Have the dates, what treatment followed, who has been looking after you, and an honest account of the period since. Expect the insurer to request a physician’s report, and know that a report describing someone who is stable, engaged with treatment and functioning well is frequently more persuasive than the event itself.

If the answer is a postponement, ask for the period in writing and put the date somewhere you will see it.

If it is a decline, that is one insurer. Approaches vary here more than in most areas. See declined or postponed.

The boundary

This page describes how insurance applications are assessed. It is not clinical information, it is not support, and it is not a judgement about anyone’s history. If you need to talk to someone, 9-8-8 is there, by call or text, any time.