Archive for August 9th, 2007
I can hear mom now. Eat it! It’s good for you! Well, back when I was growing up and my mom got broccoli and spinach out of a can, it not only tasted bad, I doubt seriously if it was really good for me. Now, fresh broccoli presents a whole other side of the story, and posssibly a way to lower your life insurance rates if you end up with prostate cancer.
I know some of you reading this are wondering how I am going to pull that whole mess together into important information. The truth is that eating broccoli won’t prevent you from getting prostate cancer. But, Paul Harvey isn’t the only one with “the rest of the story.”
But remember how underwriting works with prostate cancer? The lower the stage and grade, the sooner you can get life insurance at affordable rates. Very often, given a low stage and grade, better than standard rates can be found within six months after treatment, as long as the treatment accomplished did what it was supposed to do.
So the link is broccoli and a low stage and grade. Martha Edwards on thecancerblog.com referenced a study that stated “while regularly eating fruits and vegetables didn’t necessarily reduce one’s risk of prostate cancer, eating lots of leafy greens–particularly broccoli–was associated with a reduced risk of aggressive prostate cancer.”
Bingo! Get rid of aggressive and you’re in the hunt for good life insurance rates. I’ve heard that there is a study that shows that most males will have prostate cancer before they die. I haven’t seen the study and if anyone has, I would love to hear from them. The premise is that while most men will have it, most of them will die from something else and never know it. Maybe those that never know they have it are broccoli eaters. Maybe we should all be broccoli eaters.
Bottom line. Prostate cancer is not going away. We should do all we can to negate it’s impact on our lives.
August 9th, 2007
The answer to that question has changed some over the years. In the 70’s the rule was that you could pretty much buy all of the life insurance you could pay for. If you made $20,000 a year and wanted to use half of that to buy a $10 million dollar life insurance policy, you wouldn’t find many companies that would turn you down.
Somewhere along the line insurance companies decided that was bad business. Something just didn’t ring true when middle income families suddenly became wealthy when the husband died.
Now I’ve got to be honest. I would hope that the life insurance I have in force would allow my wife to continue the lifestyle that we’ve shared if something were to happen to me. Being very good with money and without the extra expense of me, she might even be financially better off. But wealthy? I don’t think so.
Companies are all over the map with their earned income replacement guidelines, so I am throwing out probably the most liberal of them just for the sake of discussion. This is based on a multiple of your income based on your age. The logic of a lower multiple as you get older is that there should be less years that income would need to be replaced. I don’t happen to agree with that premise.
1. Up to age 30, 30 x annual income
2. 31-45, 20 x annual income
3. 45-60, 10 x annual income
4. 60 or older, 5 x annual income
I really don’t have a problem with the younger ages and 30 x annual income. The reality is that if you were making $50,000 and left $1.5mm behind, your wife and children would probably do just fine and at that age there is plenty of time for education and seeking other avenues to rebuild her life.
I have a real problem with 10 x annual income at age 50. It might be adequate in some cases, but the ability to rebuild your life at that point is less and with mortgages and other debt, 10 x income might not really provide any income at all. It might leave a wife debt free, but debt free doesn’t put food on the table.
I agree that insurance companies shouldn’t sell whatever a person wants without justification, but it is rather ignorant on their part to ignore good sound financial planning by capping life insurance with a one size fits all multiple.
Bottom line. A good independent agent can help you determine what you really need, and if one company isn’t willing to provide what you really need, that agent can package two or three companies together to make sure your family is taken care of.
August 9th, 2007
Barry Bonds now has more home runs than anyone in history. 756!! I tried hitting 50 mph balls in a batting cage one time and hit like one out of twenty or so and it was not home run material. I’m impressed. Some people say he got there with the use of steroids. I won’t take sides on that issue, but let’s talk about how a life insurance underwriter would look at steroid use.
Life insurance underwriting is all about assessing the risk factors that go along with a particular issue. For diabetes, it’s heart disease. For Hepatits C, it’s liver damage and the side effects of interferon treatment.
Although this view is from a youth standpoint, I think the article I read on the American Academy of Pediatrics website gave a very good overview of the risk factors risk factors of steroid use.
While the effects can be as minimal as increased acne, the use of steroids also carries some heavy duty mortality issues such as “high blood pressure, unhealthy cholesterol changes, heart disease, blood clots leading to stroke, and liver damage, jaundice, or liver cancer.”
I think that would be reason enough for a life insurance underwriter to take note of steroid use, whether in a young person or an adult.
Bottom line. I like the Tiger Wood’s example. Work out every day, eat right and practice. Get married and have a baby too. It gives you another reason not to do unhealthy things.
August 9th, 2007
The question comes up with some frequency. Someone is pregnant and it suddenly dawns on them that life insurance is a good idea because there’s going to be this little “insurable interest” (industry term) running around before long. Can I get life insurance while I’m pregnant?
As with all underwriting, you will find different answers from different companies. And they all said, “that’s why we like independent insurance agents”!!! Sorry, I was dreaming there for a few seconds.
The majority of insurance companies fall into one slot. They will accept applications for insurance during the first or second trimester. Most will add a caveat that you can’t have had any problematic pregnancies in the past. This is probably good for most women because they haven’t yet reached the full impact of pregnancy on their weight. Yes, they will still weigh you. And no, most of them aren’t that interested in your pre-pregnancy weight unless you have a track record of pregnancies to prove that you bounce back to the original you when the tike arrives.
There are companies that will insure during the third trimester (that sounds redundant, but I don’t think it is). At that point you need to present yourself with no complications to date and no history of complications. There is the weight thing, but you can get the insurance and make sure you are with a company that will give you a reconsideration to a lower rate after the first year. One year of slightly higher rates isn’t too tough to swallow if you know you will be rewarded with lower rates when you are back to your normal weight.
There are also some real stick in the mud companies that simply will not offer insurance if you are pregnant.
One exception to any of the above that I haven’t run into, but I am willing to shoot an opinion from the hip on. I suspect that women having babies at medically higher risk ages would be asked to wait until the baby is born. I don’t know for sure where that would start, but I am guessing certainly by the mid 40’s. I know the underwriters would “postpone” that woman just recently that set the new record for the oldest new mother. I think she was 63 or something.
Bottom line. Pregnancy is not a show stopper when it comes to life insurance. Is it a good time to buy it? I think if I knew I had an “insurable interest” on the way that was one of the most important in my life, it would be the best time to buy.
August 9th, 2007
