Ed Hinerman On Life Insurance

Good life insurance rates when you take your diabetes to the YMCA!!

Competitive life insurance quotes have long been elusive for people with type 1 or type 2 diabetes. Many life insurance companies are changing the way they view diabetes and recognizing that there is a substantial difference in the mortality experience between those who choose to meet the challenges of being diabetic head on and those who aren’t that concerned.

Bottom line for life insurance underwriters, whether you are applying for term insurance, whole life or universal life is YMCA! Actually it really ends up being YMCCARF, but it’s my blog and close counts. The acronym stands for YOU MONITOR, CONTROL AND ARE COMPLIANT WITH ALL RISK FACTORS.

You monitor your glucose frequently, preferably more than once a day. If you have hypertension (one of the risk factors) you check it frequently. If you are overweight (another risk factor) you work on changing eating habits and beginning an exercise program. And you monitor the overall effect by seeing your doctor at least 4 times a year and discussing your lab results, specifically your A1C. If you are diabetic and don’t know what your A1C is, time to wake up and do some study.

A definition from www.metrika.com is “A1C, also known as glycated hemoglobin or glycosylated hemoglobin, indicates a patient’s blood sugar control over the last 2-3 months. A1C is formed when glucose in the blood binds irreversibly to hemoglobin to form a stable glycated hemoglobin complex. Since the normal life span of red blood cells is 90-120 days, the A1C will only be eliminated when the red cells are replaced; A1C values are directly proportional to the concentration of glucose in the blood over the full life span of the red blood cells. A1C values are not subject to the fluctuations that are seen with daily blood glucose monitoring.” The A1C is the benchmark of control that an independent life insurance agent will need to know to be able to find you the lowest rates.

Compliance with your treatment is critical, not only to your health, but to competitive life insurance quotes. Taking medication occasionally or only when you feel like you need it isn’t what your doctor prescribed. Eating a more healthy diet except on weekends isn’t what your doctor prescribed.

Compliance and control!!! You can negate the impact of the diabetes on your physical life and you can also negate the impact on your life insurance rates. Compliance and control!!

Add comment February 27th, 2007

Diabetics move up the life insurance ladder!!

From a life insurance standpoint type 1 and type 2 diabetics used to be thrown in the same underwriting bucket as people who had coronary artery disease or even some types of cancer. Life insurance quotes coming from major companies these days would point to two good things happening that have retrieved people with diabetes from that bucket.

First and foremost is earlier diagnosis and better treatment than we have seen in the past. When diabetes is recognized before it causes any collateral damage and a patient is educated in all of the aspects of good control, the chances are that a person can live their life with minimal impact. Doctors and life insurance underwriters understand that managing build (weight), hypertension, and glucose levels, along with consistently taking the prescribed medication, and getting regular checkups can lead to a long healthy life and, in the case of life insurance, lower life insurance quotes.

Key to low life insurance quotes and approved rates, is the A1C level that your doctor tests each time you see him. Unlike a glucose reading, a snapshot of the moment, an A1C tells you what your glucose average has been over the past 3 months or so. This is important, as there are diabetics that will fool themselves into believing they have good control because when they check their glucose every morning it is good and low. The A1C changes the snapshot to a photo album of the past three months and catches all of the good readings and all of the readings you might not take.

If you don’t know, ask your doctor today what your A1C is. If it is below 7, congratulations, good life insurance rates, whether you want term insurance, universal life or whole life, are within your grasp. Below 6.5 is better yet and below 6 is awesome. Above 7 is still very doable as long as you remember that the other risk factors need to be just as well controlled. So, bottom line is if you are diabetic and you take it seriously and take care of yourself, an independent life insurance agent is going to be able to get you good quotes that you earned through your hard work.

4 comments February 27th, 2007