Rheumatoid arthritis life insurance
If you live with rheumatoid arthritis, you may have assumed life insurance would be expensive, complicated, or simply not for you. For most people with controlled RA, none of those has to be true. It takes the right insurer and someone who knows how to present your case properly, and that's what we do.
The problem with the usual route
RA is a condition of detail. Seropositive or seronegative. Active or in remission. Managed on tablets or on a biologic. Generic application systems flatten all of that into one word, and the price that comes back reflects the flattening, not you.
There's a practical risk too: a decline leaves a footprint other insurers can see, so applying to the wrong insurer first can make everything afterwards harder. We can check quietly with insurers before anything formal is submitted.
What insurers look at with rheumatoid arthritis
- When you were diagnosed and how the condition has behaved since
- How active it is now, and when your last flare was
- Your treatment: methotrexate and similar tablets are routine to underwriters; biologics and JAK inhibitors signal a condition that needed serious treatment and is being actively managed
- Recent steroid courses, which suggest recent activity
- How it affects your daily life and work
- Any joint surgery, with dates and recovery
- Wider health, because RA is a whole-body condition and insurers consider things like heart health alongside it
- Smoking, which insurers know worsens RA specifically
Stable, controlled RA on consistent treatment is a case that can genuinely achieve standard or lightly loaded terms with the right insurer.
How it works
A quick, private health check online. A call with a specialist adviser who deals with RA every day. Discreet enquiries with the right insurers where it helps. Then we handle the paperwork and keep you updated. Straightforward cases can often proceed without a GP report.
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Written and reviewed by
Andy Stevens CMap
Co-Founder and Protection Specialist
Andy has spent more than thirty years placing life insurance for people insurers find difficult, including inflammatory arthritis, and he still speaks to clients himself. He co-founded Arthritis Life so that people living with arthritis get an adviser who understands modern rheumatology rather than a form that treats every type the same.
- Diploma in Regulated Financial Planning (CII)
- Member of the Chartered Insurance Institute
- Over 30 years in impaired risk life insurance
Last reviewed . This page is general information about insurance, not medical advice or a personal recommendation. More about us.
Frequently asked questions
Living with a different condition? Read about psoriatic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, osteoarthritis, gout or fibromyalgia.
You may also want to read about declined life insurance with arthritis, critical illness cover with arthritis or income protection with arthritis.