In the background, the life insurance companies are trying to calculate the odds of you killing yourself, and the disability underwriters are trying to guess the likelihood you will not be able to work because of mental illness in the future. Of the 20 or so top insurers I asked to comment, not one would say what odds they were using, adding that they consider their actuarial information proprietary. MassMutual refused to answer any questions or to say why. Allstate referred questions about its practices to an industry trade group, then stopped responding to messages.

The reluctance may be because of a lack of specific data. We just don’t know a lot about who suffered from pregnancy-related mental health issues a generation ago and what became of them.

The practical ramification of that lack of data is this: Now that untold numbers of additional women are going to learn that they have mild to moderate postpartum depression because of increased screening, there isn’t a satisfactory answer to the question of whether they ought to pay more for life and disability insurance afterward.

“To my knowledge, that data doesn’t exist,” said, Samantha Meltzer-Brody, the director of the perinatal psychiatry program at the University of North Carolina Center for Women’s Mood Disorders. “But at what point are we going to penalize people who were never suicidal? How do we weigh this, or are we going to throw everyone in the same bucket?”

Some insurance companies say they may not lump the people who have mild to moderate cases with those who were hospitalized or tried suicide, depending on whether they have the right answers to the companies’ underwriting questions. At Banner Life Insurance Company, women with a single episode of maternal depression could qualify for the best rate if it lasted less than a year and they are not currently taking any medication for the condition. At State Farm, women who have recovered from depression related to childbearing and have no history of other depression may also avoid higher premiums.

Northwestern Mutual said that women with maternal depression typically have an excellent prognosis and most applicants will pay the lowest rates. MetLife and Mutual of Omaha made similar remarks.

Disability insurers may give you coverage but permanently exclude any mental health disorders, so if cancer rendered you unable to work, the coverage would kick in, but not if you had an onset of major depression. Life insurance doesn’t work this way, though policies generally have a suicide exclusion that lasts for the first year or so, no matter your health history.