Like millions of Canadians, Tim Potter is living with a serious medical condition that has made it difficult, if not impossible, to secure meaningful life insurance.
The Halifax father of seven was diagnosed 26 years ago with Type 1 diabetes.
While his wife quickly obtained insurance coverage a decade ago, the stay-at-home dad was denied coverage. It has left him worried about his wife and young family’s welfare when he’s no longer around.
“I feel like I would be leaving her and the kids quite empty-handed if anything were to happen to me,” he said.
Potter feels stressed because all he’s been able to secure is a couple of policies that will pay just enough to cover his funeral expenses.
Securing affordable life insurance is a growing problem as more Canadians are diagnosed with serious ailments.
Half of Canadians will develop cancer at some point in their lives, the Canadian Cancer Society says. The Heart and Stroke foundation points to an increase in the number of people with heart conditions and strokes. And about eight per cent of Canadians have been diagnosed with diabetes, a condition that’s growing in frequency amid an aging population.
“It’s an epidemic,” said Joan King, director of government relations for Diabetes Canada. The number of Canadians with diabetes has doubled since 2000, she noted.
As well as diabetes, people with severe mental illness, HIV, heart conditions and other serious ailments can be left in the lurch. Other red flags for insurers can include travel to certain parts of the world or risky recreational activities.
There’s also a trend of people needing insurance for a longer period because they have families later in life or haven’t paid off their mortgage yet.
“The issue of pre-existing conditions is a bit of a growing issue because people are needing term insurance longer in their life because of the financial pressures today,” said Kevan Penonzek, manager of Insurance Direct Canada in Vancouver.
“They’re working later, they’re carrying debt longer, mortgage longer so they feel like they need term insurance to cover off that risk. And so it becomes harder when you’re 60 to 70, because people then have health issues.”
It’s a definite problem, says Michael Aziz, co-president of Canada Protection Plan, which seeks to fill the void left by traditional insurers by offering coverage that doesn’t require a medical examination.
Aziz said more carriers are adopting its simplified approach that offers certain coverage within days of answering a detailed questionnaire.
“We’ve seen our premium numbers or policies grow by 40 to 50 per cent for the last five years so that’s a good sign and we’ve seen other carriers starting to look at the non-medical space as well,” he said.
But the simplified coverage comes at a price. Premiums can be 50 to 300 per cent higher than traditional term policies and coverage limits are lower.
Insurance companies have become much more liberal about covering people with health issues, said Lorne Marr, director of new business for LSM Insurance, which owns No Medical Exam Life Insurance.
“Years ago if you had diabetes … you were declined for insurance, but now most, almost all, diabetics can get some form of life insurance,” he said.
Marr said the situation changed because insurance companies have more data to evaluate life expectancy while medications and treatments have also improved.
“There used to be only one or two companies offering these type of policies, now there’s probably 10 different companies.”
No Medical Exam Life Insurance offers two forms of term insurance — Guaranteed Issue for people facing, for example, a serious cancer diagnosis; and Simplified Issue, a less expensive policy used for people with more manageable and less severe conditions.
With new and better treatments come changes from insurers. Canada Protection Plan has followed Manulife and Sun Life, which in 2016 began to offer insurance to some HIV-positive clients.
Traditional carriers require these patients have five years of stability on anti-retroviral therapy, an undetectable viral load and receive treatment by an HIV expert. Manulife precludes those with hepatitis, a history of intravenous drug use or other substance abuse, history of coronary artery disease, diabetes, cancer and AIDS-defining illness.
Canada Protection Plan doesn’t have these restrictions and offers $50,000 of coverage. That’s much less than the million-dollar limit by Sun Life and up to $2 million for Manulife applicants aged 30 to 65.
Still, not everyone benefits from the insurers’ more open approach. Intravenous drug users, for example are denied coverage, which can be a problem for some people living with HIV, said Tammy Yates, executive director of community advocacy group Realize.
She argues that insurance companies should shorten the five-year treatment requirement to two years since medical advancements have improved life expectancy.
The history of the illness and the public stigma towards those living with HIV has ensured that very few people even contemplate seeking insurance coverage, said Shaun Proulx, a Realize board member.
In the early days of the illness, there was no chance of even considering insurance, he said.
“But there was a frustrating period after that when people were living longer and having healthier lives and were still being denied insurance as well and it made no sense.”
Proulx says the insurance companies aren’t doing enough to educate those living with HIV about availability.
“That’s an enormous amount of business that they’re leaving behind on the table.”
The Canadian government says it will donate up to 200,000 vaccine doses to fight the mpox outbreak in Congo and other African countries.
It says the donated doses of Imvamune will come from Canada’s existing supply and will not affect the country’s preparedness for mpox cases in this country.
Minister of Health Mark Holland says the donation “will help to protect those in the most affected regions of Africa and will help prevent further spread of the virus.”
Dr. Madhukar Pai, Canada research chair in epidemiology and global health, says although the donation is welcome, it is a very small portion of the estimated 10 million vaccine doses needed to control the outbreak.
Vaccine donations from wealthier countries have only recently started arriving in Africa, almost a month after the World Health Organization declared the mpox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.
A few days after the declaration in August, Global Affairs Canada announced a contribution of $1 million for mpox surveillance, diagnostic tools, research and community awareness in Africa.
On Thursday, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said mpox is still on the rise and that testing rates are “insufficient” across the continent.
Jason Kindrachuk, Canada research chair in emerging viruses at the University of Manitoba, said donating vaccines, in addition to supporting surveillance and diagnostic tests, is “massively important.”
But Kindrachuk, who has worked on the ground in Congo during the epidemic, also said that the international response to the mpox outbreak is “better late than never (but) better never late.”
“It would have been fantastic for us globally to not be in this position by having provided doses a much, much longer time prior than when we are,” he said, noting that the outbreak of clade I mpox in Congo started in early 2023.
Clade II mpox, endemic in regions of West Africa, came to the world’s attention even earlier — in 2022 — as that strain of virus spread to other countries, including Canada.
Two doses are recommended for mpox vaccination, so the donation may only benefit 100,000 people, Pai said.
Pai questioned whether Canada is contributing enough, as the federal government hasn’t said what percentage of its mpox vaccine stockpile it is donating.
“Small donations are simply not going to help end this crisis. We need to show greater solidarity and support,” he said in an email.
“That is the biggest lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic — our collective safety is tied with that of other nations.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
HALIFAX – The Nova Scotia government says it could be months before it reveals how many people are on the wait-list for a family doctor.
The head of the province’s health authority told reporters Wednesday that the government won’t release updated data until the 160,000 people who were on the wait-list in June are contacted to verify whether they still need primary care.
Karen Oldfield said Nova Scotia Health is working on validating the primary care wait-list data before posting new numbers, and that work may take a matter of months. The most recent public wait-list figures are from June 1, when 160,234 people, or about 16 per cent of the population, were on it.
“It’s going to take time to make 160,000 calls,” Oldfield said. “We are not talking weeks, we are talking months.”
The interim CEO and president of Nova Scotia Health said people on the list are being asked where they live, whether they still need a family doctor, and to give an update on their health.
A spokesperson with the province’s Health Department says the government and its health authority are “working hard” to turn the wait-list registry into a useful tool, adding that the data will be shared once it is validated.
Nova Scotia’s NDP are calling on Premier Tim Houston to immediately release statistics on how many people are looking for a family doctor. On Tuesday, the NDP introduced a bill that would require the health minister to make the number public every month.
“It is unacceptable for the list to be more than three months out of date,” NDP Leader Claudia Chender said Tuesday.
Chender said releasing this data regularly is vital so Nova Scotians can track the government’s progress on its main 2021 campaign promise: fixing health care.
The number of people in need of a family doctor has more than doubled between the 2021 summer election campaign and June 2024. Since September 2021 about 300 doctors have been added to the provincial health system, the Health Department said.
“We’ll know if Tim Houston is keeping his 2021 election promise to fix health care when Nova Scotians are attached to primary care,” Chender said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Newfoundland and Labrador‘s chief medical officer is monitoring the rise of whooping cough infections across the province as cases of the highly contagious disease continue to grow across Canada.
Dr. Janice Fitzgerald says that so far this year, the province has recorded 230 confirmed cases of the vaccine-preventable respiratory tract infection, also known as pertussis.
Late last month, Quebec reported more than 11,000 cases during the same time period, while Ontario counted 470 cases, well above the five-year average of 98. In Quebec, the majority of patients are between the ages of 10 and 14.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick has declared a whooping cough outbreak across the province. A total of 141 cases were reported by last month, exceeding the five-year average of 34.
The disease can lead to severe complications among vulnerable populations including infants, who are at the highest risk of suffering from complications like pneumonia and seizures. Symptoms may start with a runny nose, mild fever and cough, then progress to severe coughing accompanied by a distinctive “whooping” sound during inhalation.
“The public, especially pregnant people and those in close contact with infants, are encouraged to be aware of symptoms related to pertussis and to ensure vaccinations are up to date,” Newfoundland and Labrador’s Health Department said in a statement.
Whooping cough can be treated with antibiotics, but vaccination is the most effective way to control the spread of the disease. As a result, the province has expanded immunization efforts this school year. While booster doses are already offered in Grade 9, the vaccine is now being offered to Grade 8 students as well.
Public health officials say whooping cough is a cyclical disease that increases every two to five or six years.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick’s acting chief medical officer of health expects the current case count to get worse before tapering off.
A rise in whooping cough cases has also been reported in the United States and elsewhere. The Pan American Health Organization issued an alert in July encouraging countries to ramp up their surveillance and vaccination coverage.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 10, 2024.
