Uninsurable and breast cancer used to be synonymous in life insurance, no matter the type, stage or grade. It wasn’t that long ago that cancer of any type was generally talked about in the context of how many weeks or months someone had left to live.
Thanks to more screenings and early detection, breast cancer survival has improved dramatically. Along with that has come a new look from insurance companies in the way they treat breast cancer and life insurance.
To find out what is available and the best rates, contact an independent life insurance agent for quotes. Use an independent agent so your situation can be shopped across a broad spectrum of companies and products.
When you find an agent be prepared to provide a pathology report showing the stage and grade of the cancer and details of the treatment and when it was completed. Just to put things in context, the likelihood of getting a life insurance offer during treatment is 0. Obviously a company wants to know the outcome of the treatment before deciding to insure.
So, take heart if you are a breast cancer survivor. Affordable insurance is a very real possibility.
March 9th, 2007
It was not that long ago that UNINSURABLE was often found in the same sentence with cancer, no matter the type, stage or grade. That was based on the fact that back when I was young people who had cancer, almost any kind of cancer, died from it. It seemed that the news was never about treatment and survival, but about how long a person had to live. Months! A year!
Now, in a world where we have the knowledge and tools to detect cancer earlier, and treatment methods that allow us to cure many types of cancer, insurance companies have taken a refreshing new view of at least some types of cancer and have concluded that within certain perameters (stage, grade and treatment), the mortality experience is getting very close to what the average person would have absent the cancer at all.
Prostate cancer is one that has done a 180 degree turn around. With more men breaking down and getting regular checkups, any increase in the PSA or any abnormality found on a physical exam, is noted early enough that the cancer rarely has the chance to advance to a point of being dangerous. Caught early and treated early, prostate cancer has become very survivable and insurance companies are rewarding that with increasingly lower rates.
If you have had prostate cancer and would like to see what is available for life insurance, whether it is term insurance, universal life or whole life, you should seek out an independent agent and be ready with the information he or she will need to shop it successfully for you.
Acquire a copy of your pathology report. If you had a radical prostatectomy, get the post surgical pathology report. Ask your doctor what the PSA was at the time your cancer was diagnosed and what it is currently. Ask your doctor what the stage and grade or the cancer was. Be ready to answer questions about any other health issues you have faced. Given that information you may be very pleasantly surprised at the life insurance quotes your agent is able to obtain.
Bottom line, times are changing. Don’t assume that cancer and uninsurable are synonymous anymore.
March 9th, 2007
