Georgina Dent was priced out of standalone life insurance in part because she's experienced anxiety and depression in the past. Should something disastrous eventuate, having some financial security is a price we want to pay, for ourselves and our children. We both had some life insurance and income protection attached to our super accounts, but neither were adequate. Our adviser suggested we explore stand-alone policies too. For my husband this worked a treat but for me there were no treats. The reason was two-fold: I have Crohn's disease and I have experienced anxiety and depression in the past. These conditions, I learned, make me a giant red flag to potential insurers.

Pre-existing conditions make buying adequate life insurance and income protection prohibitively expensive. Even though I haven't suffered from mental illness for years, the premium for me to obtain stand-alone income protection insurance or life insurance would be exorbitant. The premiums would cost far more than we could afford. It stung to discover. The irony of how it made me feel, even briefly, wasn't lost on me. Insurer QBE was found to have 'engaged in direct discrimination' against one of its travel insurance claimants in 2015. Nor is it uncommon according to Dr Stephen Carbone, who is beyondblue's Policy, Evaluation and Research Leader.

"We have worked on this issue for a long time because we kept hearing stories from people with mental health conditions who were encountering a number of barriers when seeking insurance," Dr Carbone says. "From blanket exclusions in travel insurance policies to being denied cover for life or TPD insurance, people were having trouble." "Everyone really should be able to access all forms of insurance because things can go wrong for any of us." Dr Stephen Carbone A 2011 survey of over 400 consumers, that beyondblue conducted with the Mental Health Council of Australia, indicated that 50 per cent of respondents agreed or strongly agreed they had difficulty obtaining insurance as a consequence of their mental health. "That's a fairly significant proportion of people experiencing difficulty in obtaining insurance when they shouldn't," Dr Carbone says. "Everyone really should be able to access all forms of insurance because things can go wrong for any of us." Despite a decade of advocacy very little meaningful change has occurred.

"Certainly there is more interest being shown recently but there haven't been many substantive improvements for the end user," he says. A 2016 ASIC review of insurance showed that policyholders with mental health conditions face a more "challenging burden" in making claims than those with physical conditions. Claims are declined and/or disputed more often and policy holders with mental health conditions face greater delays in claims. They are often required to attend psychiatric evaluations, complete activity diaries, submit regular progress claim forms, provide medical reports and attend interviews with private investigators, as well being the subject of surveillance. "They tend to be given a harder time – they have to prove more and submit more paperwork which means it's a much slower process," Dr Carbone says. "This obfuscation, should we say, is detrimental to a person's mental health."

The ASIC review highlighted a number of cases where mental illness was used to block a claim, even when the mental health condition wasn't relevant. These are among the reasons ASIC concluded industry standards in this area are needed to better protect policyholders. "It is unlawful to discriminate against a person because of their mental health condition unless you do it on the basis of sound actuarial data which shows a major commercial disadvantage," Dr Carbone says. "Some insurers have been doing it without referring to any substantive data." QBE was caught out in this regard in a landmark legal case in late 2015. The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal found QBE had "engaged in direct discrimination" against one of its travel insurance claimants, Ella Ingram. She had cancelled a school trip to America in 2012 after suffering severe depression. She believed her travel insurance, which was bought when she wasn't suffering any illness, would reimburse her costs. They refused. VCAT ruled the insurer had breached the Equal Opportunities Act in refusing the claim and in issuing the policy with a blanket mental illness exclusion.

Whether a mental health condition poses a major commercial disadvantage is difficult to say without seeing the numbers that insurers and underwriters have. Dr Carbone believes insurers and underwriters are working in the background to better model, rate and price risk relating to mental health conditions. Ella Ingram's legal victory is reason enough for insurers to examine the way mental health conditions are treated. If I didn't suffer from Crohn's disease it is likely I could mount a case for overlooking my experience of mental illness. But I do suffer from Crohn's so for now I am boxed in, or more accurately, priced out. Loading

Whether that's discriminatory or simply commercially necessary is a question only data can answer. Georgina Dent is a journalist, editor and TV commentator with a keen focus on women's empowerment and gender equality.