Ed Hinerman On Life Insurance

Another Bipolar Life Insurance Home Run!

The news really does keep getting better and better when it comes to well controlled, stable bipolar leading to good life insurance rates. I just placed a case with a woman who was actually approved at a better rate than we had applied for.

Part of the reason for her better than successful result was a letter that her doctor forwarded with her medical records. She said it was OK to share that letter to lend some credence to what I’ve been preaching as the criteria for good life insurance rates.

Remember, not all people with bipolar are going to get good results, but meeting the following criteria should get you there.

1. No hospitalization for bipolar in the last 10 years other than for diagnosis purposes.
2. No suicide attempts
3. Compliant and stable on treatment. Preferably a period of stability on current medication.
4. A stable family and work life.
5. You can’t be on disability for bipolar (that would obviously cancel out number 4)

Her doctor wrote: “My client has been under the care of our office since 2001 for treatment of bipolar disorder and psychotherapy. Her medications tried over the past seven years have been Lamictal, Topamax and Lithium carbonate. Currently she is on Lamictal 700 mg per day. During all this time her mental status has shown her to be alert and oriented, memory intact, thinking logical and goal-directed, mood and affect appropriate, no psychotic symptomatology and no suicidal tendencies.

When last seen on January 11 her mental status was completely within normal range and she had no side effect to the medication. She had adequate insight, judgment, orientation, mood, affect and thinking processes.” Sincerely……..

Bottom line. Her actual records would have gotten her standard rates, a home run to someone who had been told no several times. With her doctor’s glowing report she got standard plus rates, a bases loaded home run, or a hole in one or just awesome.

Add comment April 24th, 2008

Life Insurance Guaranteed To 120? 130?

When I talk to clients about today’s permanent products and the trend away from the old guarantees to age 100 and toward guarantees of 120+, I am often chuckled at. Uinversal life policies with no lapse guarantees to 120 or 130 may be more well thought out than a lot of people give them credit for.

I was just reviewing an article discussing the increasing number of centenarians in the country. It seems that in 1990 there were about 20,000 people over 100. In 2000 that had grown to 50,000 and by 2050 it is estimated that it will explode to some 800,000.

The article is set up as kind of a moving educational tool. One part of the graphic speaks to life expectancies in different parts of the country. Perhaps no surprise in this is that Mississippi has the lowest life expectancy in the country. I have touched on statistics about Mississippi before that have shown that it leads the country in obesity and type 2 diabetes percentages of the population.

One that surprised me was the state with the longest longevity being Minnesota. I know for a fact that I would likely freeze to death at a much earlier age living in a state that gets so cold.

The other part of the graphic is an interesting historical view of the leading causes of death and how they’ve changed over the past 100 years.

Bottom line. While people may roll their eyes at the idea of life insurance that is guaranteed to 120 or longer, simply because so far no one has lived that long at least since biblical times, choosing a policy with a guarantee to just 100 is no longer a prudent move.

2 comments April 24th, 2008