Mental health and life insurance in Ireland — what the 2025 claims data shows, and what the application is really asking

The number that re-frames the conversation

For most of the last twenty years, the mental-health-and-life-insurance question in Ireland was a hypothetical one. Mortality data showed cancer and cardiovascular disease as the dominant causes of in-force life claims. Serious illness paid mostly on cancer and cardiac events. Mental health appeared in underwriting questions but rarely in the claims report.

That position has changed. Aviva Ireland’s 2025 protection claims release puts psychological causes at 26% of new income protection claims — the single largest category, ahead of orthopaedic at 25% and cancer at 21%. New Ireland and Irish Life do not publish the same cause-level IP breakdown for 2025, but the wider Irish protection market has been pricing for the same shift for several years: psychological prevalence in working-age populations, longer durations on claim, earlier first-claim ages. The detail sits in the 2025 whole-of-market claims report.

Income protection is the product where this shows up first because IP pays on inability to work rather than on death or critical-condition diagnosis. The other three protection products in the Irish market — life cover, mortgage protection and specified serious illness — pay on different events. But the underwriting question on mental health is now substantively the same across all four. An applicant for mortgage protection in 2026 will be asked the same set of mental-health questions as an applicant for income protection. The terms applied to the answer will differ. The question will not.

Where mental health sits in each of the four products

This article is about how Irish protection underwriting handles a mental-health history. Before getting to that, it is worth being precise about what each product pays on, because the role mental health plays differs sharply between them.

The distinction matters. A mental-health history is relevant to mortgage protection and life-cover applications in the same way a cardiovascular history is — it changes the underwriting view but does not change what the policy pays on. For income protection, mental health is both an underwriting question and a primary route to claim. For specified serious illness, mental health is essentially an underwriting question only — the conditions list does not include depression, anxiety or related diagnoses.

That is why the IP figure matters even for a consumer buying only mortgage protection. It is the clearest evidence in the market that mental health is now a material protection-product risk. It is also the clearest evidence that Irish insurers have begun to price for it.

The Irish legal framework — what insurers can and cannot do

The temptation, in any article on mental health and insurance, is to argue from first principles about what insurers ought to do. The Irish legal framework already answers that question. Three statutes set the boundaries.

Equal Status Acts 2000–2018

The Equal Status Acts prohibit discrimination on nine specified grounds in the provision of goods and services, including insurance. Disability is one of those grounds, and mental-health conditions fall within the statutory definition of disability for this purpose.

But the legislation also permits insurers to treat applicants differently on disability and other grounds — except gender — in relation to “annuities, pensions, insurance policies or other matters related to the assessment of risk” where the differential treatment is “based on actuarial or statistical data or other relevant underwriting or commercial factors and are reasonable.” This is the statutory basis on which Irish insurers can apply loadings, exclusions or declines for mental-health histories.

The two words that do the work in that provision are “reasonable” and “actuarial.” An insurer applying a loading based on documented mortality or morbidity data is acting within the Act. An insurer applying a blanket exclusion on a category of applicant without actuarial support is not.

Consumer Insurance Contracts Act 2019 §16

The 2019 Act sets the modern Irish standard for what a consumer must disclose on an application. Section 16 replaces the open-ended common-law duty of utmost good faith with a duty to answer the specific questions asked, honestly and with reasonable care.

For mental-health applicants, this is consequential. The duty runs only to the questions the insurer asks. If the application form asks about “any consultations with a GP in the last five years,” the answer must be complete. If the form does not ask about a particular fact, the consumer is not required to volunteer it. The framing of the question, and the completeness of the answer, are what the insurer is entitled to rely on.

§16 also sets a graduated remedy structure. Innocent misstatement attracts a proportionate remedy. Negligent misstatement attracts a more significant remedy. Deliberate or reckless misstatement attracts contract avoidance and refund of premiums only. The 1–3% of Irish life claims that are not paid generally fall into the negligent or deliberate categories — and mental-health non-disclosure is one of the recurring patterns in that small minority. The relationship between the application form and the claim form runs through §16.

Consumer Credit Act 1995 §126

For mortgage protection specifically, §126 of the Consumer Credit Act 1995 imposes the statutory obligation to take cover as a condition of drawdown. §126(2)(b) carries the exemption: the lender is not obliged to arrange mortgage protection insurance where the applicant “belongs to a class of persons which would not be acceptable to an insurer, or which would only be acceptable to an insurer at a premium significantly higher than that payable by borrowers generally.”

This is the legal route by which an applicant with a serious mental-health history who has been declined by the protection market can still draw down a mortgage. It requires written declines (in practice, typically two) and is exercised at the lender’s discretion. It is materially under-used in Ireland — a workable application strategy, run through a broker with whole-of-market visibility, will avoid this route in the great majority of cases.

What Irish underwriters actually ask

A 2026 protection application in Ireland will include, as standard, a structured mental-health section. The exact wording differs between offices, but the architecture is consistent. Six question categories appear on every form:

1. Diagnosis. Has the applicant ever been diagnosed with depression, anxiety, panic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, bipolar affective disorder, schizophrenia, an eating disorder, or another psychiatric condition?
2. Treatment. Has the applicant ever received counselling, psychotherapy, cognitive behavioural therapy, or other talking therapy? Ever been prescribed medication for a mental-health condition? Ever been hospitalised — voluntarily or involuntarily — for a mental-health reason?
3. Self-harm or suicide. Has the applicant ever had thoughts of self-harm or suicide, or attempted either?
4. Time-off-work. Has the applicant taken time off work — and if so, for how long — for a mental-health reason in the relevant lookback period (typically five years)?
5. Current functioning. Is the applicant currently symptomatic, currently in treatment, currently medicated, currently under specialist care?
6. Specific events. Are there any specific recent events the underwriter should be aware of — bereavement, marital breakdown, redundancy — that produced a reactive episode?

Each question has a defined materiality threshold. Each office applies its own combination of severity rating, time-since-treatment requirement and exclusion structure to the answers. The variation between offices on the same set of disclosed facts is wider on mental health than on most other underwriting categories.

How a mental-health history actually affects an Irish application

The Irish market broadly recognises three underwriting tiers for mental-health applications. This is the typology — not a specific office’s wording, which varies.

Tier 1 — standard terms. Mild, episodic, well-managed conditions that resolved several years before the application. A single episode of reactive depression following a defined life event, treated with short-course medication and counselling, resolved and stable for the relevant lookback period (typically three to five years), is the modal Tier 1 case. The Irish market routinely accepts this profile at standard terms on life cover and mortgage protection. Income protection underwriting is more cautious — some offices will accept at standard terms, others will apply a small loading or a defined exclusion.

Tier 2 — non-standard terms. Moderate, recurrent, or recent conditions. Recurrent depression, generalised anxiety disorder under ongoing medication, a single episode within the last two to three years, or a documented period of time off work in the last five years. The Irish market typically responds to Tier 2 with a premium loading on life cover and mortgage protection — usually in the 25–100% range, depending on the office and the specifics — and with either a loading, an exclusion on mental-health claims, or a deferred period extension on income protection.

Tier 3 — declined or heavily restricted. Severe, recent, or unresolved conditions. Recent hospitalisation, a history of suicide attempts or active self-harm, bipolar affective disorder with recent acute episodes, schizophrenia or other severe and enduring conditions. The Irish market will typically decline IP and SI for Tier 3 applicants in the short term, and will often offer life cover or mortgage protection at a substantial loading with a postponement period before reconsideration.

These tiers are not formally defined in any single insurer’s literature — they are the practical pattern an Irish broker sees across the market. The wording, the loadings, the exclusions and the postponement periods differ between the five offices in ways that materially change the outcome for the same applicant.

The five variables that move an Irish underwriting outcome on mental health

Within each tier, five variables determine whether an applicant gets standard terms, a loading, an exclusion or a decline.

Time since last episode. The single most important variable. An episode five years ago, fully resolved, with no further symptoms or treatment, is treated very differently from the same episode two years ago with ongoing medication. The standard underwriting threshold for “no longer material” varies between three and five years across the Irish market, with three years being more typical for mild conditions and five years for moderate.

Severity at the time. Underwriters distinguish between episodes that required GP-managed care, those that required referral to a psychiatrist or psychologist, those that required medication, and those that required hospitalisation. Each step up the severity ladder changes the underwriting view.

Treatment compliance. An applicant who engaged with treatment, completed the course of medication or therapy as prescribed, and remained under medical follow-up is in a stronger position than one who self-discharged or stopped medication against advice. This is a documented fact in the GP records.

Current functioning. Is the applicant currently working, currently independent, currently symptom-free, and currently off medication? “Currently well” is the strongest possible position. “Currently medicated but stable” is acceptable to most of the Irish market at non-standard terms. “Currently symptomatic” is harder.

Occupation. A small number of high-stress occupations — emergency services, healthcare, legal — attract additional scrutiny on mental-health applications because the underwriter is pricing for a higher base rate of work-related stress. This is more pronounced on income protection than on life cover.

Practical sequence for a mental-health application in Ireland

For an applicant with a mental-health history, the application is not the same as a generic protection application. Five practical points separate a clean outcome from a difficult one.

Get a GP summary before applying. A two-page summary of consultations, diagnoses, prescriptions and treatment outcomes in the relevant lookback period is the single most reliable document an applicant can have in hand. It produces complete answers to the application form, reduces the risk of innocent omission, and gives the underwriter the picture in the format they expect.

Allow time for the application. A mental-health application that the underwriter can decide on the basis of standard medical reports typically takes longer than a clean one — three to six weeks rather than three to ten days. Build the time into the mortgage timeline rather than treating it as an emergency at the drawdown stage.

Consider the timing. If the applicant is currently in treatment or recently changed medication, waiting until the position is stable may produce materially better terms. A six-month delay in applying can move an outcome from a loading to standard terms in some cases. A broker should make this assessment before the application is submitted, not after the decline.

Do not assume a decline. The Irish market is more accommodating to mental-health applications in 2026 than it was five years ago. Many applicants who would have been declined or heavily loaded in 2018 receive standard or near-standard terms today. The pricing data underlying that shift is partly what produced the 26% IP figure — the actuarial case for cover has caught up with the consumer need.

Use a broker that pre-underwrites the whole market. This is the structural argument for using a broker on a mental-health application rather than going direct to a single office. mylife is a whole-of-market broker — but more than that, our pre-underwriting system understands every Irish protection contract in granular detail, including the mental-health underwriting position each office takes. We match the applicant’s medical, occupational and lifestyle picture to the policy that best fits it, and only then overlay pricing and other factors to arrive at a recommendation. On a mental-health application, the variation between offices on the same disclosed facts is wider than on most other categories. A single-channel quote cannot replicate the comparison. A comparison engine that prices five offices on the same inputs cannot replicate it either.

What this means for the 2026 buyer

Three things follow from the 2025 picture.

First, mental health is now a mainstream Irish protection-underwriting category, not a marginal one. The 26% IP figure is the headline number, but the same direction of travel is visible in life-cover and mortgage-protection applications. An applicant with a mental-health history is not an exception in 2026; they are a routine case.

Second, the Irish framework is generally accommodating. The Equal Status Acts require differential treatment to be actuarially supported and reasonable. The Consumer Insurance Contracts Act 2019 limits the disclosure duty to the questions asked and graduates the remedy for non-disclosure. The Consumer Credit Act 1995 carries an exemption from the mortgage protection requirement for applicants the protection market does not accept. The legal architecture is not the obstacle.

Third, the wording differences between the five Irish offices are wider on mental health than on most other categories — wider than on smoker status, wider than on family history, wider than on BMI. The right office for a mental-health applicant is the office whose underwriting position best fits the specific facts of the case. That is not a question the consumer can answer alone, and it is not a question a comparison engine can answer either.

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