People who are mentally ill or with a history of depression in Finland are facing life insurance discrimination, a report has claimed.

Insurance applications are allegedly declined in cases where the applicant has experienced even mild depression years before applying.

Even as this is happening, added the report, insurance companies do not have a common policy on the seriousness or length of time one suffers depression before his application could be rejected.

With the estimation by the National Public Health Institute that nearly 40 per cent of Finnish adults would undergo some form of depression at some point, allegation of life cover discrimination is provoking increasing concern among people.

Six per cent of the population reportedly took medication to treat depression in 2007.

In the same vein up to 10 per cent were said to have used either sleeping pills or medication to treat symptoms of psychosis or neurosis.

Meanwhile, the country’s major insurers have revealed that risk assessment is usually made complex by the number of possible diagnoses of mental illness, just as life insurance is often admitted on a case-by-case basis.