Let’s Revisit That Life Insurance Bucket!

Not that long ago I wrote a post about how some companies are just missing too much good, easy, clean, actuarially sound life insurance business because they are writing the impairment and not the person. It’s like we’ve heard  people say in every situation things like, “I’m not a diabetic, but a person with diabetes”. To most insurance companies you are what you’ve been diagnosed as and that is as good as you get, even when it overwhelms reality and then some. In response to that blog post I got an email from someone who had been declined for life insurance by SBLI for major depressive disorder.

Being a successful doctor with a nearly 20 year old successful practice he said he just didn’t understand how he didn’t qualify at all, not even at some risk class….any risk class? But SBLI took an old diagnosis and used it to refuse to read the whole story. We shopped the case and just got it approved today at preferred best rates by Prudential, a company well known for the fair hearing it gives to mood disorders. In  this case it was a simple review of the records and a quick approval.

Ancient history I know, but the days of US Financial and life insurance “clinical underwriting” never did catch on with most companies and has slowly lost its’ appeal with a lot of those who stuck their toes in the water only to realize the complexity of having to read and digest the whole story instead of just the teaser on the back cover. There are some left though and life insurance impaired risk cases are being approved by them daily. This is the struggle we are seeing with HIV+ life insurance really taking off is that the companies that are trying to play in that field aren’t the same life insurance companies that have learned to look through the corn instead of over it. (Obscure if you’ve never been in a corn field)

Bottom line. Home run for our doctor client today and kudos to Pru for taking the narrow path and looking at the client rather than the impairment and the life insurance underwriting manual. If you have questions or feel like your life insurance application ran into a wall of unreality and needs a fresh set of eyes looking it over, call or email me directly. My name is Ed Hinerman. Let’s talk.