Yes. Most diabetics can buy life insurance, and a meaningful share qualify at standard rates. The diagnosis alone does not price the policy — your A1c, your age at diagnosis and whether you use insulin do most of the work.
The belief that a diabetes diagnosis makes you uninsurable is the single most common reason people never apply. It is wrong, and it is expensive to believe.
What actually decides the outcome
Underwriters work through a short list, roughly in this order: your A1c and its trend across several readings, how old you were at diagnosis, whether you take insulin, and whether there are complications. A clean complication history matters more to your rate class than a slightly better A1c.
Where carrier choice matters
The spread between carriers on an identical diabetic file is routinely several rate classes wide. A carrier writing a lot of diabetic business has built pricing around it. A carrier with little appetite prices to discourage it, or declines. Both are looking at the same bloodwork.
That is why applying in the right place matters more here than almost anywhere else, and why a decline from one carrier tells you very little about the next.
The full treatment of this topic is on Diabetes.