Yes. My mom's primary cause of death was pneumonia with secondary being advanced Alzheimer's.

This stat below gives an idea on that difference with diabetes in U.S. And it seems to me, in industrialized nations you're more likely to get treatment so it wouldn't be the primary cause of death.

http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/statistics/

Deaths: Diabetes remains the 7th leading cause of death in the United States in 2010, with 69,071 death certificates listing it as the underlying cause of death, and a total of 234,051 death certificates listing diabetes as an underlying or contributing cause of death.