Sleep apnea is a serious health condition that can cause a person to snore, loudly, every night. It is easy to see how sleep apnea can affect a person’s spouse. The condition can also affect a person’s health insurance, life insurance, and auto insurance premiums.
Sleep apnea is a type of breathing disorder that doctors have become more aware of in the past few years. The disorder causes a person to repeatedly stop breathing while he or she is sleeping. This can cause the brain, and the rest of the body, to be unable to get enough oxygen.
The most obvious symptom of sleep apnea is snoring. This is frequently noticed by the person’s spouse, who is unable to get a good night’s sleep due to the loud snoring. This complaint is often what causes a person to see a doctor and be tested for sleep apnea.
The most common treatment involves the use of a CPAP machine. It is a mask that can be worn while a person is sleeping, and it helps a person to breathe better. The CPAP machine is usually covered by health insurance. It is often prescribed after a person has spent a night in a sleep lab. This is also covered by health insurance, and is quite a bit more expensive than the CPAP machine.
There is the potential that a health insurance company will choose to assign a higher premium rate to a person who has been diagnosed with sleep apnea. They might offer limited coverage, or refuse to cover a person who has sleep apnea. In part, this is because the disorder is a serious one. It also has to do with other health factors that relate to sleep apnea. A few studies have linked sleep apnea with a higher risk of the development of cancer.
According to Edward Grandi, the executive director of the American Sleep Apnea Association, once a person has been diagnosed with sleep apnea it can result in a “decline to cover” by a life insurance company. This is because a life insurance company’s underwriters take a close look at an applicant’s risk factors. A condition like sleep apnea can affect this calculation.
Did you know that sleep apnea can also affect a person’s car insurance rates? This is because auto insurance company may feel that a side effect of sleep apnea is sleepiness, and that a sleepy driver could make bad driving choices and get into more accidents than a well rested driver would.
Image by Rachel Tayse on Flickr