Mental Health and Insurance survey

Mental Health UK brings together over 40 years of expertise from four national mental health charities (Rethink Mental Illness in England, Hafal in Wales, Support in Mind Scotland and Mindwise in Northern Ireland). 

Our Mental Health & Money Advice website provides information and advice about accessing insurance.  This includes advice about when you may need to disclose a 'pre-existing medical condition' like mental ill-health.

We would like to know your experiences and thoughts on accessing insurance and disclosing a mental health condition. Our questions are about the following types of insurance:

- Travel insurance: single or multi-trip standard insurance that covers you when you're away. 
- 'Protection insurance': this includes life insurance (this is paid out to your loved ones if you die and is often offered when you take on a mortgage), income protection insurance (a long term insurance policy that can help you if you can’t work because you’re ill or injured) and critical illness insurance (this will usually pay out a lump sum to you if you are diagnosed with a specific physical illness.)

But you can also tell us your story, in your own words, about any problems you've had trying to access insurance with a mental health condition. This could include experience you've had with health insurance (this offers a way to pay for private health treatment if you become unwell, like talking therapy) and motor insurance. It could include accessing insurance cover provided by your employer (for example health cover or life cover), and it could include problems claiming on any of your existing policies because you have declared a mental health condition.

Mental Health UK will use your survey answers to help us influence positive change in the insurance industry.  And your responses will also help us to create new information guides for people who struggle – or think they may struggle - to get insurance.

Data will be collected and used anonymously and your personal details will not be shared. The survey will take around 10 minutes to complete.  You don't have to answer all the questions, but anything you can share will help us to understand better the problems people with mental ill-health face in the insurance market.