Can You Wrap Your Mind Around How Dumb This Is?

In a post some years ago I was talking about underwriting of mild mood disorders and made a flip comment that it seemed about time that underwriters take another look since most of America and likely most of them were on Prozac or Zoloft or Wellbutrin.

Well, I’m not always as effective as I hope I will be, but several companies did engage in the conversation and there have been changes, especially for past treatment of mild depression or anxiety. This really came to the forefront for me recently when I wrote about a physician who was paying far more for their life insurance than they needed to simply because they had taken anti-anxiety medication during Med school. This doctor wasn’t hospitalized, didn’t have to take a leave of absence and was able to deal with the same stress that every physician went through in school by taking one mild medication.

It had been over 5 years since the physician was in school and used any medication and companies she had tried were still not willing to offer their best rate class. This is a young, completely healthy person who did the prudent thing in light of the stress she was experiencing. Anyway, she read a post I had written and contacted me and now has a policy in force at preferred plus rates.

It’s just one of those things that defies logic. Almost all companies allow their best rate class if you take cholesterol controlling medication. Many companies now allow best rate class for people who are being treated for high blood pressure. I have clients who are using a cpap for sleep apnea approved at preferred plus rates. I have clients over age 60 with type 2 diabetes paying preferred plus rates. Because of multiple posts on mood disorders we now have clients who have been treated or are being treated for mild, well controlled situations paying preferred plus rates.

Whether it is a physician or an attorney who needed help in school, or a CEO who is taking Prozac because the economy is more challenging now than it was before, or a homemaker having to deal with more challenges than most professionals ever see, these are people doing the right thing to lower their stress and from an underwriting standpoint, their mortality risk. There shouldn’t be a penalty.

Bottom line. In this day and age it really is pretty pathetic that companies are hanging on to outdated, slightly paranoid underwriting guidelines. If you have any kind of mood disorder, depression, anxiety, bipolar or any of the others that is well managed with a single medication make sure you find an agent that can get you the rates you deserve.