Life insurance after a heart attack or stroke
You can buy life insurance after a cardiac event or a stroke. What you usually cannot do is buy it immediately.
Almost every carrier applies a postponement period — a stretch of time after the event during which they will not write you at any price. Once that window closes, the file becomes underwritable, and the single biggest factor in what you pay is how long ago the event happened.
What the underwriter asks
How long ago. This is the first question and it dominates everything after it. Underwriting appetite improves markedly the further out you get, and there's usually a threshold — commonly measured in years rather than months — past which the file moves from postponed to rated. Someone six years out from a single stent with clean follow-up is in a different market from someone eleven months out from the same procedure.
What kind of event. A single stented artery reads differently from a multi-vessel bypass. A transient ischaemic attack reads differently from a stroke with residual deficit. Underwriters are looking for scope — how much of the system was involved, and how much function was lost.
What your heart does now. Ejection fraction, recent stress test results, and any imaging carry real weight. Good current function after a serious event is genuinely reassuring to an underwriter, and it's the strongest thing a rated applicant can bring to a reconsideration later.
Whether it happened again. A second event resets the clock and narrows the carrier list substantially. Recurrence is the risk the underwriter is actually pricing.
What else is in the file. Cardiac history rarely arrives alone. Blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes, weight and tobacco all compound it, and tobacco use after a cardiac event is close to the worst combination in underwriting.
Whether you followed through. Attending cardiology follow-ups, filling the prescriptions you were given, participating in cardiac rehab — all of it shows up, and all of it helps. An applicant whose prescription record shows gaps in a statin or anticoagulant is telling the underwriter something they didn't intend to.
Where ratings usually land
Directional, and carrier spread on cardiac files is among the widest in the industry:
| Profile | Common outcome |
|---|---|
| TIA, several years back, no recurrence, clean follow-up | Mild rating, sometimes standard |
| Single stent, well past the postponement window, good function | Rated, low-to-mid table |
| Bypass, several years out, stable, other risks controlled | Rated, mid table |
| Stroke with residual deficit, or event within the postponement window | Postponed, then heavily rated |
| Recurrent events, or ongoing symptoms | Simplified or guaranteed issue territory |
Some carriers apply a flat extra instead of a table rating — a fixed charge per thousand of coverage that runs for a set number of years and then falls away. For a risk that genuinely diminishes with time, a flat extra usually costs less overall than a permanent table rating, and it's worth asking which structure a carrier is using.
Can you get it without an exam?
Sometimes, with limits. Simplified issue is the realistic no-exam route once you're past the postponement window, and coverage will be modest. Accelerated underwriting programs will generally spot cardiac medication in the prescription record and move the file into full underwriting, so treat the no-exam path as a possibility rather than a plan.
If you are inside the postponement window and need something in force now, guaranteed issue is what exists — but understand you're buying a graded benefit at the highest price per dollar on the market, and that a rated policy becomes available to you later.
Before you apply
Collect the discharge summary, the most recent cardiology note, and the last stress test or echo. Underwriters who have to request these take weeks, and they price conservatively while they wait.
Do not shop by submitting applications. Cardiac declines are recorded and visible to the next carrier.
And diarise a reconsideration. Cardiac ratings are among the most likely to come down, because the risk genuinely falls with each event-free year. Two or three years of clean follow-up plus current imaging is a real case — but you have to make it.
FAQ (mark up as FAQPage)
How long after a heart attack can I get life insurance? Most carriers postpone for a period after the event, then underwrite. The exact window varies by carrier and by event severity, and the further out you are, the better the rate class.
Is a stent treated the same as a bypass? No. Underwriters look at how much of the system was involved. A single stent with good current function is generally a milder file than multi-vessel bypass.
Does a TIA count as a stroke? Underwriters treat it as a warning signal rather than an equivalent event, and it usually rates more mildly — but it is not ignored.
Can a cardiac rating be removed? Frequently, yes. It's one of the most reconsiderable ratings there is, because event-free years genuinely reduce the risk. You need current records and you have to request it.
Will they know if I don't disclose it? Yes. Statins, beta blockers and anticoagulants all appear in the prescription database, and the pattern is recognisable. Non-disclosure found during the contestability period can void the policy.