Life Insurance With Migraines: What Changes Your Rate, and What Usually Doesn’t

Having migraines doesn’t stop you from getting life insurance in Canada. What decides the outcome is the detail on your file, and which insurer reads it first.

Every insurer words its health questions differently. Some name migraines outright. Some fold them into a general question about neurological conditions. And some simplified issue forms (shorter applications with no medical exam) don’t ask about migraines at all.

To be clear, I don’t work for the companies. I work for my clients. So the job is matching your history to the form, and to the underwriter, most likely to read it fairly, before anything gets submitted.

Skip ahead to

1. Do migraines affect life insurance in Canada?
2. What underwriters check: aura, frequency, medication
3. What the application asks about migraines
4. Migraine with aura, and when to get a preliminary check
5. When a migraine looks like a stroke
6. Disability and critical illness coverage
7. How to apply, and what to disclose
8. Common questions

Do Migraines Affect Life Insurance in Canada?

Usually not by much. Many applicants with stable, well-managed migraines may qualify for life insurance at standard rates, depending on their symptoms, any investigations, their treatment and their overall health.

One underwriter put it to me plainly: they do not view this as a longevity risk. Migraines are miserable to live with. But life insurance prices how long you’re likely to live, and on its own a migraine history often doesn’t move that much.

So when someone calls me worried about their migraines, my first question usually isn’t about the headaches. It’s what else is in the chart.

If you’re managing more than one condition, our guide to life insurance with medical conditions shows how insurers look at them together.

What Underwriters Check: Aura, Frequency and Medication

Underwriters check three things first: how often your migraines happen, whether you get aura, and what you take for them.

When I talk to an underwriter about a migraine file, it’s the same short list every time. Migraine frequency and whether there is aura, medication dosages. Everything else is follow-up.

Here’s what a typical headache questionnaire asks, and what each question is actually trying to find out.

Medication is where good files get tripped up. Some migraine preventives are also blood pressure or heart drugs, metoprolol being a common one.

If you’re on metoprolol for migraines, I want the indication clearly documented. If your doctor’s notes don’t say why it was prescribed, an underwriter can read it as a heart issue. That’s a different conversation, and usually a more expensive one.

Our list of medications that could affect your life insurance application goes further on this. And if you want to see how these answers turn into a rate class, start with how life insurance risk levels work.

What the Application Actually Asks About Migraines

Most fully underwritten applications ask about migraines or headaches directly, usually inside a question on neurological conditions. Some simplified issue forms don’t mention migraines at all.

One question shows up almost everywhere, though. Every insurance company out there literally will ask, do you have any pending test or consults happening?

Below that, the forms split. The full application digs into the migraine itself. A simplified issue form asks fewer health questions and usually skips the exam and bloodwork. It’s still underwritten, though, and your answers are binding.

Based on current application wording and product terms, which insurers can change. TIA means a mini-stroke.

Assumption Life Platinum Protection has no migraine question at all. On iA Access Life, a “yes” to a pending test at the first step moves you to its Guaranteed Access tier, and that changes the coverage a lot.

• Lower maximum: $50,000 at ages 18 to 50, and $25,000 from age 51.
• Two-year limit on natural death: if you die of natural causes in the first two years, your beneficiary gets the premiums back without interest, not the face amount.
• Accidental death pays the face amount from issue, subject to the contract.

So the same person can get very different answers depending on which form they fill out first. That’s the part people can’t see when they apply on their own. If you’d rather skip the exam, you can compare no-medical life insurance quotes across insurers before choosing a form.

Migraine With Aura, and When to Get a Preliminary Check First

Migraine with aura can still be insured, and applicants may be assessed at standard rates once it’s been investigated and is stable. Aura that hasn’t been looked at by a doctor, especially with numbness, weakness or speech changes, is where offers get rated or put on hold.

Visual aura, the zigzag lines or blind spots, is the most common kind. What draws closer review is aura with numbness, weakness or trouble speaking. That’s when underwriters want proof it was a migraine and nothing else.

This is the kind of file where I don’t apply blind. Where an insurer offers it, I send a preliminary assessment first: an informal check with an underwriter before any formal application. I describe the history: age, how often, what the aura looked like, what testing was done. What details they need, and whether it can go without a name, varies by insurer.

The answer tells me where to send the real application. Not every insurer still offers prelims, which is one more reason the order you apply in matters. The same approach works for most pre-existing conditions.

If you’ve had aura with numbness, weakness or trouble speaking, talk to a broker before you fill out any application. Book a 30-minute call or phone 647-360-4625, and we’ll work out whether a preliminary check makes sense first.

When a Migraine Looks Like a Stroke: Scans, Referrals and Postponement

If a migraine looked like a stroke and you’re still waiting on a scan or a neurology appointment, many insurers will postpone a fully underwritten application until the results are in. Postponed isn’t declined. It means “come back when you know.”

These are the calls that worry people most. Someone had numbness down one arm, or couldn’t get words out, ended up in the ER, and now there’s an MRI booked and a referral sitting in a queue. Then they read the application and freeze.

I tell them the same thing every time. You can only answer the questions truthfully and honestly. Then we plan around the wait instead of fighting it.

That written conclusion from the specialist is the whole game. A report confirming the episode was migraine, with no sign of stroke, opens doors that an open investigation keeps shut. If the scan does find a stroke or a TIA, it’s a different file entirely, and our page on life insurance for stroke survivors covers that.

So what do you do in the meantime?

• Don’t cancel anything you already have. Existing coverage was priced before the episode. Keep it, and add to it later. Yes, you can hold more than one life insurance policy.
• Watch your birthday. If one passes while you wait, ask about backdating to save age when you do apply.
• If you can’t wait, some simplified products have a separate tier for pending tests, such as iA Access Life Guaranteed Access. Expect a lower maximum ($50,000 at ages 18 to 50, $25,000 from 51), and if death from natural causes happens in the first two years, premiums are returned without interest instead of the face amount being paid. It’s a stopgap, not a destination.

Most people think the hard part is getting approved. Usually it’s the timing.

Why Disability Insurance Treats Migraines Differently Than Life Insurance

Disability insurance is where migraines cost the most. An insurer can approve you and still exclude any claim caused by headaches or migraines, while life insurance on the same person is often unaffected.

It makes sense once you see what each one pays for. Life insurance pays if you die. Disability pays if you can’t work. Insurers generally don’t see migraines as shortening a life, but they know migraines can stop someone working.

I had a client who was in an accident and ended up with migraines. She hasn’t been able to go back to work, and long-term disability is what’s carrying her now. That’s the claim a migraine exclusion is written to avoid.

So if you’re offered disability coverage with a migraine exclusion:

• Read the exact wording. “Headaches and migraine” is broader than “migraine.”
• Ask whether it can be reviewed later, after a stretch of stable years. Not every offer includes that.
• Compare it to having no individual coverage at all. Often the exclusion still leaves the bigger risks covered.

There’s more on how this works in our guide to disability insurance with a pre-existing condition. When you’re ready, you can compare disability insurance quotes from several insurers.

Critical illness sits in between. At least one insurer’s policy definitions say headache on its own isn’t the kind of neurological deficit a stroke claim needs. A past stroke-like episode is where insurers split. One major insurer’s guide may still allow critical illness if the episode was confirmed as migraine, while another declines any history of a TIA. Before you apply, it’s worth seeing critical illness insurance quotes next to each insurer’s rules, which can change.

How to Apply for Life Insurance With Migraines (and What to Disclose)

Apply by disclosing every migraine diagnosis, medication and pending test the way your doctor’s records show it, and have the details ready before the application starts.

Most of the application goes quickly if you know what’s coming. These are the questions I ask on the first call, nearly word for word, because the insurer will ask the same things.

If those answers line up with what’s in your medical records, the file tends to move. If they don’t, that’s when underwriters start ordering reports from your doctor and things slow down.

One more thing people don’t realize. Many insurers belong to the Medical Information Bureau (MIB). With your authorization, a member insurer can report certain health information in coded form, and other members may see those codes when you apply later. So “I’ll just leave it off this time” rarely works, and a misstatement on an application can give an insurer grounds to contest the policy at claim time. Our page on why life insurance claims get denied in Canada covers how that plays out.

Already been declined somewhere? That isn’t the end of it. These are the most common reasons people are denied life insurance, and many of them can be worked around with the right insurer.

Life Insurance and Migraines: Common Questions