Archive for March 3rd, 2007
I was recently speaking to a woman and she made the comment that her husband would really like to have term life insurance, but he had been told that he was uninsurable. Being the nosy kind of guy I am, and knowing that she is a nurse and would have good information, I asked about the cause of his uninsurability. She indicated that more than one agent had indicated to her that because her husband had type 1 diabetes, he was uninsurable.
I asked about his treatment, which was an insulin pump. I also asked about his most recent blood workup wth his doctor, and specifically his HbA1c. She indicated that it had been as high as 9, but since starting on the insulin pump, it had dropped to 8. I asked about collateral health issues that are sometimes caused by diabetes such as kidney and eyesight problems. He didn’t have any of those issues. His build, height and weight, were within reasonable limits.
This a classic example of what happens when people, through no fault of their own, place faith in the statement of an insurance agent, not knowing if that agent has the knowledge or the resources to properly address their needs. They they never find a good independent life insurance agent to shop the same facts. The agents they had talked to before were either captive agents who only represented one company, or agents who didn’t understand diabetic underwriting and what companies to go to for the best life insurance quotes.
Given good, or even moderate control, a type 1 diabetic or a type 2 diabetic should be able to get fair and affordable life insurance quotes, as long as their other risk factors are also favorable.
Other common misconceptions that are spread by agents that don’t know any better are that you can’t get life insurance if you have asthma, if you’re over age 75, if you weigh too much, if you have had hepatitis, breast cancer or prostate cancer. Bottom line, don’t accept uninsurable as the answer unless you have consulted an indepedent life insurance agent.
March 3rd, 2007
It’s all over financial news sources. And it’s true. Not often news and truth are in the same corner, but here you go. Due to updated mortality tables and good old competition, the rates, primarily in the healthiest rate classes have been coming steadily down for the past 10 years or so.
Take for example a 51 year old guy in excellent health. 10 years ago he bought a policy from a competitive company at their best rates. He purchased a $500,000, 20 year level term. He has 10 years left on the guaranteed rate of $730 a year, so having heard the rumor he decided to get a life insurance quote on a new $500,000, 10 year term. That would give him an apples to apples comparison with what he had left. The new policy will be $620 a year. So, he can switch to a new policy and save $110 a year for the balance of his 20 years that he wanted to insure.
A further comparison was to drop 10 years back off of his age and see, if he were 41 again today, what his original 20 year term would cost. Try $400 a year. Have term insurance rates really come down? Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!
If you’ve had a term insurance policy for 5-10 years and your health is still good, you’re just crazy not to contact an independent life insurance agent and shop it.
The newer policy may even have built in features at no extra cost like the accelerated death benefit. That allows you, if you are terminally ill, to take a percentage of the proceeds before you die to help pay bills or whatever you need it for. The balance is held for your beneficiaries to receive upon your death. A lot of older policies don’t have these features.
Lower cost! Better benefits! It’s real and it’s worth checking out.
March 3rd, 2007
I was checking out some blogs on life insurance this afternoon, and being the kind of guy I am I wanted to point out where a few of them had fallen short of telling the whole story. In the process they had deprived the readers of valuable, money saving information. The problem I ran into was that the blog sites didn’t offer a way to comment. Could it be that they don’t want their readers to see comments? Without pointing any fingers, two of the three I visited were on line life insurance big boys Insweb and Accuquote. The other one really drove me nuts, call the life insurance blog. Touted the fact that it was a place to discuss life insurance. Only problem, a one way discussion. No place to comment. I am shaking my head.
March 3rd, 2007
