Medical history can increase your life insurance premiums
Lucky applicants for life insurance can be insured quickly and at the premium quoted – but 2 in 3 applicants are faced with delays plus the prospect of having their premium increased due to their medical history.
So who are the lucky ones? Basically, you’ll have to be as fit as a flea with no family history of serious illness, under 45 and probably applying for less than $1,000,000 in coverage. For everyone else there is going to be some hassle.
When I provide an initial quote for life insurance, all I know is your age, sex and smoking status. the companies use these details to make an initial prediction of how long you are likely to live and on that basis they give you an initial quotation. They call it their “Standard Rates”.
If you want to progress your application you’ll have a multi-page application to complete. This isn’t as daunting as it may seem, as most companies have e-apps and I can get your details over the phone and send you a copy of the completed application for you to check over. But the questions are extensive and if you miss out anything that later turns out to be significant, your insurance may well be invalidated. So be warned and take care!
Your medical history.
The underwriters use your application and medical history details to look out for anything that signals current or future concerns about your health or life style. Besides the obvious questions that reveal health problems, they also evaluate your weight, alcohol and nicotine intake, and any potentially inherited health problems. So if your father died of a heart attack or mother died from breast cancer, they’ll be concerned.
Then there’s your life style.
If you are involved in any form of dangerous sport or flying, your premium is in line for a increase. Speeding tickets, DUI or if you have been charged with a criminal offence and other risky behaviors will also affect your rate. They’ll even want to know whether you regularly travel to countries that are known to represent health risks for visitors.
Faced with a rating what can you do?
It’s important to appreciate that the insurance companies giving the cheapest initial quote are also likely to have particularly choosy medical criteria. That’s how they keep their quoted prices low. So if you’re faced with a rating, the best advice is shop around, not all insurance applications ask the same questions and some carriers are more lenient than others when it comes to your medical history and issues like diabetes and HIV.
Whilst this may sound overly complicated, remember that over the years, an extra $10 a month on a 20 year policy represents $2400 of your hard earned money. If you don’t have the experience or time to do this, speak to me a life insurance broker.
Competition is high on the Internet and when disclosing your medical history some online brokers will normally reduce your quotes by sending you the “Elite Health” rates -the lowest rates that only the super healthy can qualify for. At LifeInsurance-Orleans.ca we don’t play games like that, we send you quotes at “Standard Health” rates that the majority of people qualify for. So keep things simple. Let your keyboard fingers do the walking and let the life insurance broker do all the hard work!
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