· 
Life Insurance With Mitral Valve Prolapse or Regurgitation in Canada
By Parvesh Benning, Licensed Life Insurance Broker · Updated August 31, 2026
Two carriers read the same line on the same cardiac scan and gave opposite answers.
A decline at one company does not necessarily predict what the next one will do. Mitral valve findings are a good example, because carriers can read the same cardiac evidence differently, and the trigger is sometimes a single descriptive line on a scan that the person’s own cardiologist was not worried about.
Life Insurance With Mitral Valve Prolapse or Regurgitation in Canada
By Parvesh Benning, Licensed Life Insurance Broker · Updated August 31, 2026
Two carriers read the same line on the same cardiac scan and gave opposite answers.
A decline at one company does not necessarily predict what the next one will do. Mitral valve findings are a good example, because carriers can read the same cardiac evidence differently, and the trigger is sometimes a single descriptive line on a scan that the person’s own cardiologist was not worried about.
Mitral valve prolapse is common, usually mild, and very often found by accident on a scan ordered for something else entirely. Those facts alone do not decide a life insurance application.
The route you apply through can materially change how that evidence gets assessed. The fully underwritten shelf and the no-medical shelf look at the same valve finding through different lenses, and when they say no, they often say it for different reasons. Get that backwards and you can spend months in underwriting collecting a decline that might have been avoidable, which is a more expensive outcome than a higher premium. It is also one way a manageable pre-existing condition becomes a harder file than it needed to be.
Fully underwritten
Weighs the whole file, including family history and any other cardiac findings. A carrier’s position on mitral findings is often unpublished, which is why two of them can read the same evidence and land in different places.
No medical
Uses a defined set of health questions and lookback periods instead of a full medical assessment. That can make eligibility easier to work out in advance, but the exact wording matters, and a mild finding may still close a product tier if it falls squarely inside a named question.
What this page covers
Can you get life insurance with mitral valve prolapse or regurgitation?
What insurers actually grade on a mitral valve finding
How fully underwritten carriers handle it, and why two can disagree
Why the no-medical route can be the harder one
Complications, surgery and what changes the answer
Can You Get Life Insurance With Mitral Valve Prolapse or Regurgitation?
Yes, and in the files I see it is usually not the wall people brace for. The honest complication is that you cannot look the answer up. Canada Life’s current underwriting advisor guide, the March 2024 edition, carries no entry for acquired mitral valve disease at all. Sun Life’s 2026 field guide covers valve repair and replacement but has nothing for an untreated valve. For a condition this common, that absence is the whole story.
The two labels people arrive with are not the same thing. Mitral valve prolapse is structural: part of the valve bulges back into the upper chamber as the heart contracts. Mitral regurgitation is about flow: some blood leaks backward through the valve instead of moving forward. You can have the prolapse with no meaningful leak at all. In underwriting terms it is usually the leak, and its effect on the heart, rather than the prolapse label on its own, that gets the attention.
So what actually moves an application is not the diagnosis on the top line. It is the grade of the leak, whether you have symptoms, whether anyone is treating you, and what else is sitting in your file. The words doing that work are almost always already in your echocardiogram report, which most people have never reread.
What an underwriter reads on an echo report
“Mild mitral valve prolapse with trivial mitral regurgitation. Normal left ventricular size and systolic function.“
The grade words get read first. Trivial, mild, moderate and severe are not interchangeable, and they are the quickest thing on the page to find.
The chamber line usually matters more than the diagnosis. A leak that has not changed the size or the pumping function of the heart is a different file from one that has, even where the diagnosis on both reports reads the same.
Illustrative wording only, not a real report. Yours will use its own phrasing, and what yours says is what gets assessed.
This is also why one decline is worth so little on its own. I have seen the same file turned down at one company and approved at another with nothing about the client changing in between, and I have seen that happen repeatedly on cardiac files. If you want the wider view before the detail, our guide to life insurance with heart conditions in Canada covers the rest of the cardiac shelf.
What Insurers Actually Grade on a Mitral Valve Finding
Underwriting guidelines run hundreds of pages and most of what sits in them is generic. What matters is whether a guide names your condition specifically, because when it does, it usually also tells you what it intends to do about it. On mitral valve findings, most of the Canadian shelf I hold does not name it, and that pushes the decision onto evidence: what your file can prove, rather than what somebody decided in advance and wrote down.
Which means the first real signal you get is not a price. It is a document request. What a carrier asks you to produce, and how much of it, tells you roughly where the file has landed before anyone has quoted you anything at all.
Murmur described as innocent or functional, no symptoms, no treatment
Often nothing beyond the application itself
Ivari carves functional murmurs out of its report-request list by name. Foresters flags only the murmurs it considers significant.
Anything the carrier treats as significant, or any murmur read as structural
A report from your own doctor or specialist, called an attending physician’s statement
Canada Life requires one on its heart murmur entry. Foresters and Ivari both list significant murmurs as a trigger for the same request.
Valve already repaired or replaced
That report, plus cardiac test results, plus the operative reports
Sun Life names all three together for a repaired or replaced mitral valve. Requirements are current at the time of writing and carriers revise them without notice.
Almost none of that turns on the words mitral valve prolapse. It turns on whether anything downstream of the valve has changed and whether a specialist is still involved. It is also why the life insurance medical exam is rarely the hard part on these files. The paramedical visit is routine and quick. The physician’s report is where the weeks go, and it is a large part of why accelerated underwriting tends to stop being available once a valve finding is sitting on your record.
The request is the decision point. By the time a carrier is asking for operative reports, it has already decided the label on your chart was never going to be enough.
How Fully Underwritten Carriers Handle It, and Why Two Can Disagree
They handle it case by case, and mostly without a published rule to point at. I have had a file come back declined with no diagnosis, no medication and no cardiologist follow-up on it, then watched the same file get approved somewhere else inside the same few weeks. That is not carriers being arbitrary. It is what happens when the guides do not name the condition, so every underwriting desk is left to weigh the whole picture on its own.
Canada Life
Publishes ratings for congenital valve conditions, including 150% to decline for a bicuspid aortic valve, which is a valve you are born with. Carries no entry at all for an acquired mitral valve.
Sun Life
Publishes a full decision path for a mitral valve that has been surgically repaired or replaced. Carries nothing for a mitral valve nobody has operated on.
Foresters
Publishes a likely standard outcome for a murmur described as innocent or functional, with no symptoms and no treatment. A murmur caused by a prolapsing valve is not that, and is assessed on the evidence instead.
That gap is not a loophole and it is not carelessness. Valve findings run all the way from an incidental note on a scan to a genuinely serious structural problem, and carriers would rather read the evidence than commit to a number in advance for the whole range. The cost of that flexibility lands on you, because it means the answer is not knowable until somebody asks. It also means the label high risk gets applied more loosely here than the medicine justifies.
One file, two underwriting desks
What was actually on the file
One descriptive line on a cardiac MRI: a thickened mitral valve leaflet.
The scan was ordered as family screening after a relative’s diagnosis, not for anything she was feeling.
The genetic testing that prompted it came back negative for her.
No diagnosis, no medication, no cardiologist follow-up, no symptoms.
First carrier
Declined, citing the overall medical and family history together. Reconsideration was offered, but only on a fresh cardiac workup, which is the same workup her own cardiologist had already told her she did not need.
Second carrier
Approved, in the same window, on the same medical facts, with nothing about her having changed in between.
A real case, de-identified, carriers not named. Outcomes depend on the full application and are not a guide to what any other file will do.
So the practical move is to stop treating the first answer as the answer. A formal decline is a genuine cost, because later applications commonly ask whether you have previously been declined, postponed or rated, and those questions have to be answered accurately. That is why it pays to understand why applications get turned down before you file one rather than after. It is not a verdict on your insurability, and on the file above it was not even a verdict on the medical facts. Fully underwritten is still the route I try first on an uncomplicated valve finding, and the reason is plainly cost, so it is worth getting a proper read on term life insurance before anyone talks you into paying more for less coverage.
Why the No-Medical Route Can Be the Harder One
It can be, and this is the part that catches people out. Typically simplified is the easier path to go down. But these plans run on knockout questions, so a mitral finding that a fully underwritten desk would weigh against everything else can close a whole tier on its own. Particularly where it has been less than five years since diagnosis, fully underwritten is often the better path. That is not always true. If enough time has passed, and depending on treatment and whatever else is sitting on your file, simplified issue may well be the right answer.
Lookback windows, not severity, decide which tier you reach
Canada Protection Plan, on a murmur or arrhythmia
Each product asks its own lookback question rather than sharing one timeline. The more recent the entry on your file, the lower the tier you can reach.
Deferred Life
Its question looks back 2 years
Deferred Elite
Its question looks back 4 years
Simplified Elite
Available where the entry is more than 5 years back
The published windows leave a gap between the four and five year marks. That is exactly the sort of thing to put to underwriting in writing rather than assume either way.
Assumption Life, on a murmur or arrhythmia
Diagnosed within 5 years
Platinum Protection closes. Golden, Silver and Bronze do not screen for it at all
More than 5 years back
Platinum Protection opens back up, subject to the rest of the declaration
iA Access Life, on heart valve disease
Guaranteed Access, the first of four steps
Where the diagnosis came before age 40
Deferred step
Where there have been blood thinners or surgery inside 3 years
Immediate Plus, the top step
Where neither of those applies
Beneva Simplified, on heart and blood vessel disorders
Screened as a lifetime question, not a time-boxed one
There is no window to wait out, so the clock never starts
Drawn from each carrier’s current published product and underwriting material. Tier names and windows are theirs, not ours, and they revise them without notice. Nothing here tells you how to answer a question on an application, and reaching a tier is not a guarantee of an offer.
Look at what is actually moving there. Not severity. Not symptoms. The date on your chart, and in one case your age when it was written. Three of those four may hand you a materially different product depending on how long ago somebody made the entry, and the fourth does not care how long it has been. None of that is a judgment about how sick you are, which is exactly why it catches people who assumed a mild finding would be treated as a mild finding.
And then it goes the other way
A woman in her early fifties in eastern Ontario, non-smoker, mild mitral regurgitation plus a minor conduction delay, both picked up on a workup after some chest pain. Nothing treated. No medication at all.
She applied fully underwritten first. Nurse visit, report to her doctor, four or five months of premium paid, then an email declining her for cardiac issues and nothing further.
Re-routed to a simplified plan, she was issued a 20 year term. It is still in force today, close to three years on.
A real case, de-identified, carriers not named. Her findings did not match the named conditions on that plan’s question set. Somebody else’s identical-sounding diagnosis might.
So the honest rule is not that simplified is worse. It is that the two shelves ask different questions, and your file answers them differently. Fully underwritten weighs everything and often will not tell you its position in advance. Simplified publishes its questions and its lookback periods up front, then applies them to whatever is written on your chart and when. Reading the no-medical plans available in Canada against your own dates, before you apply anywhere, is most of the work.
If you know your diagnosis date, we can usually identify which valve-specific lookback questions apply first. Overall eligibility still depends on the rest of the application, but checking that against each carrier’s current question set before anything is submitted costs nothing and can help you avoid an unnecessary formal decline. Start with no medical life insurance quotes, or call us at 1-877-654-6119.
Complications, Surgery and What Changes the Answer
A single cardiac finding and a compounding vascular picture are completely different risk classes, and that distinction decides almost everything in this section. A mitral valve on its own is usually a short conversation. A mitral valve that has started pulling other things along behind it gets read as one file, not as a valve plus some footnotes, and the arithmetic changes fast.
Three things that change the file
01
An irregular rhythm arrives. Sun Life can still reach standard on a single episode that has been fully investigated with a normal echocardiogram. Repeated episodes are a different answer, and Sun Life specifically names moderate or severe valve disease alongside an irregular rhythm as one of the combinations it is unlikely to consider.
02
Symptoms or medication start. The Foresters position that reaches likely standard is conditional on no symptoms and no treatment. Assumption Life runs a separate two year window on medication changes for an arrhythmia, which means a dose change may reset a clock you thought had already run out.
03
Coronary disease turns up alongside it. On a repaired or replaced mitral valve, Sun Life names coexisting coronary artery disease as a reason the file is unlikely to be considered at all. Not rated harder. Not considered.
Surgery is the one place where some of the guides stop being vague. Once a valve has actually been repaired or replaced, the condition has a name, a date and an operative report, and a few carriers do publish roughly what they intend to do with it. Sun Life is one of them.
Sun Life, once the valve has been operated on
Repaired: from 150%, up to 400%
After the first year. A rating of 150% means one and a half times the standard premium for your age and health, not one and a half times what you were originally quoted.
Replaced: from 200%, up to 350%
Also after the first year, and the range moves with your age at the time of the operation.
Inside the first year: postponed
Both routes. Postponed is not the same as declined, although later applications may still ask about either decision. Critical illness underwriting is assessed separately and may be more restrictive after valve surgery.
One carrier’s published position, current at the time of writing and subject to change. Other insurers may take a different view. Any offer depends on the full application, the operative reports and your cardiac testing.
None of that is a reason to assume the answer is no. A rating is an offer. It is coverage, at a price, from a company that has read your file and decided it wants the risk, and the same logic that gets people covered after an aneurysm or after a heart attack applies here. What it is a reason for is not guessing. Once there is a second cardiac item on your file, the gap between the best and worst answer you can get widens considerably, and picking the wrong door first is what costs people.
Complications, Surgery and What Changes the Answer
A single cardiac finding and a compounding vascular picture are completely different risk classes, and that distinction decides almost everything in this section. A mitral valve on its own is usually a short conversation. A mitral valve that has started pulling other things along behind it gets read as one file, not as a valve plus some footnotes, and the arithmetic changes fast.
Three things that change the file
01
An irregular rhythm arrives. Sun Life can still reach standard on a single episode that has been fully investigated with a normal echocardiogram. Repeated episodes are a different answer, and Sun Life specifically names moderate or severe valve disease alongside an irregular rhythm as one of the combinations it is unlikely to consider.
02
Symptoms or medication start. The Foresters position that reaches likely standard is conditional on no symptoms and no treatment. Assumption Life runs a separate two year window on medication changes for an arrhythmia, which means a dose change may reset a clock you thought had already run out.
03
Coronary disease turns up alongside it. On a repaired or replaced mitral valve, Sun Life names coexisting coronary artery disease as a reason the file is unlikely to be considered at all. Not rated harder. Not considered.
Surgery is the one place where some of the guides stop being vague. Once a valve has actually been repaired or replaced, the condition has a name, a date and an operative report, and a few carriers do publish roughly what they intend to do with it. Sun Life is one of them.
Sun Life, once the valve has been operated on
Repaired: from 150%, up to 400%
After the first year. A rating of 150% means one and a half times the standard premium for your age and health, not one and a half times what you were originally quoted.
Replaced: from 200%, up to 350%
Also after the first year, and the range moves with your age at the time of the operation.
Inside the first year: postponed
Both routes. Postponed is not the same as declined, although later applications may still ask about either decision. Critical illness underwriting is assessed separately and may be more restrictive after valve surgery.
One carrier’s published position, current at the time of writing and subject to change. Other insurers may take a different view. Any offer depends on the full application, the operative reports and your cardiac testing.
None of that is a reason to assume the answer is no. A rating is an offer. It is coverage, at a price, from a company that has read your file and decided it wants the risk, and the same logic that gets people covered after an aneurysm or after a heart attack applies here. What it is a reason for is not guessing. Once there is a second cardiac item on your file, the gap between the best and worst answer you can get widens considerably, and picking the wrong door first is what costs people.
What to Have Ready Before You Apply
It depends which route you are on, and the split is sharper than people expect. For a fully underwritten application you want as many details as possible: where you were taken care of, your cardiologist’s information, the surgeon if there ever was one, every medication name, and dates for when things happened. For a simplified plan, frankly speaking, it is the dates that matter most, more than anything else. Medications still help, but on that side it is less about the name of the drug and more about what it is being used to treat.
Going fully underwritten: bring documents
- The echocardiogram report itself, and the date it was done. Not your summary of it, the report.
- Your cardiologist’s name and clinic, and your family doctor’s, because the report gets requested from them and a wrong address costs weeks.
- Every medication you take, with what each one is for.
- Dates. When it was found, when you were last seen, when you are next due back.
- Operative reports, if a valve has been repaired or replaced.
Going simplified: bring dates
- The date of diagnosis, to the month if you can get it.
- The date of your most recent medication change, including a dose change.
- Whether the words murmur or arrhythmia appear anywhere in writing about you, because several of these plans screen on the wording rather than on the valve.
- Whether you are currently under investigation or waiting on a specialist appointment. Some declarations ask about that separately, before they ever reach the condition itself.
- How old you were when the finding was first recorded, not how old you are now.
Gather the information. Do not decide in advance what it means for any particular question on any particular form.
That last line is not a technicality. Reports get worded loosely, questions get worded precisely, and the two do not always line up. Where a report is genuinely ambiguous, the answer is not yours to interpret and it is not mine to interpret either. It goes to the carrier’s underwriting desk in writing, and we work from what they send back. That is also what a preliminary assessment is for: an anonymous read from underwriting on your actual situation, before any application exists and before anything can land on your file. Availability varies by insurer, but where it is offered it costs nothing and it is usually quick. If you also take anything regularly, it is worth knowing which medications affect a life insurance application before you start. When you are ready, get in touch and we will run it.
Nobody with a mitral valve finding should be discovering what a carrier thinks of it by receiving a decline in the mail four months later. Where preliminary underwriting is available, an informal read gives us direction before anything formal exists. It is not binding, and the final decision still comes from full underwriting, but it beats guessing.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I get life insurance with mitral valve prolapse?
Yes. Mitral valve prolapse is not automatically uninsurable, and many applicants with an uncomplicated finding are able to obtain coverage. What varies is the price and the route, and both depend on the grade of any leak, whether you have symptoms, whether anyone is treating you, and what else sits on your file.
Will mitral valve regurgitation make my premiums higher?
There is no standard figure to quote, because most Canadian carriers do not publish a position on an uncomplicated mitral valve finding at all. Where a valve has been surgically repaired or replaced some guidance does exist, and Sun Life for example starts at 150% of the standard premium after the first year. For an untreated finding the assessment is built from your evidence rather than from a published rule, and it varies by insurer.
My echo says trivial mitral regurgitation. Do I have to tell the insurer?
Answer every application question fully and accurately, even where your cardiologist considers the finding minor. Leaving out a material health detail can create problems later, including at claim time. If the wording of a question does not clearly fit what your medical report says, I would clarify the question with the insurer or prescreen the case rather than guess at it.
My doctor is not concerned. Why does the insurance company care?
They are doing two different jobs. Your cardiologist is deciding whether you need treatment or monitoring now. An underwriter is assessing long-term mortality risk for pricing, and reads your file as it was written rather than as it was explained to you. A finding your doctor is comfortable watching can still trigger a request for a full report from that same doctor.
I was declined for a heart condition. Can I apply somewhere else?
Yes. Carriers can reach different conclusions on the same evidence, and one decline is not a market verdict. A later application will often ask whether you have previously been declined, postponed or rated, so a formal underwriting decision may need to be disclosed when you apply again. That is why I would understand the first decision before submitting anywhere else, rather than reapplying blind.
Is a no-medical policy the safer option with a valve condition?
Not automatically, and often not. No-medical plans are still underwritten, using a defined set of health questions and lookback periods at the point of sale instead of a full file review afterwards. Several of them screen for a heart murmur or for valve disease by name and by date, so a mild finding may close a tier that a fully underwritten assessment would have handled without much difficulty. Which route is safer turns largely on how long ago you were diagnosed.
What if my mitral valve has already been repaired or replaced?
Recent valve surgery can lead to postponement or a rating, depending on the insurer, the procedure, your recovery and your current cardiac findings. Sun Life’s published guidance, as one example, postpones inside the first year and then starts at 150% for a repair and 200% for a replacement, with the range moving depending on age at the time and any complications. Critical illness underwriting is assessed separately and may be more restrictive after valve surgery.
What to Do Next With a Mitral Valve Finding
The valve alone does not decide this. Your dates, your evidence, and which shelf you walk up to are what shape the answer.
You have a finding and have not applied
Get a preliminary read before anything lands on your file. Where it is available it is anonymous and it costs nothing, and on a file like this it is worth more than any quote.
You applied somewhere and were turned down
Do not reapply blind. A different carrier may reach a different answer on the same evidence, and the point is to know which one before you file, not after.
Your valve has been repaired or replaced
Timing is doing most of the work here. Inside the first year the answer is often wait. After it, the assessment is a different conversation with published numbers behind it.
Check your cardiac file before you apply.
We compare the market across more than twenty Canadian insurers, so a no from one of them is a starting point rather than an answer. Send us your dates and your echo report and we will tell you which routes are worth using before anything is submitted. Start here for a free life insurance quote, or call 1-877-654-6119 to talk it through with a licensed broker. If you would rather read first, our guide to the best life insurance companies in Canada covers who does what across the market.
Licensed and serving clients across Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, from our head office in Hamilton, Ontario. We provide life insurance and segregated fund solutions, including term, permanent, no medical and critical illness coverage.
Coverage, ratings and eligibility depend on the full application and on each insurer’s current underwriting rules, which change without notice. Carrier positions described on this page are current at the time of writing and vary by insurer. This is general information about insurance underwriting, not medical advice. Speak with your physician or cardiologist about your heart.
