Archive for May 1st, 2009
We launched our first attempt at a Google adwords advertising campaign targeted specifically to those with bipolar disorder today. As our success grows in helping this under served, over abused group of people our hope is that we can reach even more with the good news.
It’s a good day when we are able to get a case approved for someone with bipolar at the price that we were shooting for. No surprises. No bad news. It’s an amazingly great today, like today, when I can call a client and let them know that their application was approved at a substantially better rate than we were shooting for. West Coast Life came through for us today at a rate that was 50% below their original trial quote.
As we solidify a core group of companies and underwriters behind this effort it is exciting to see them start to exceed even what they told us to expect going in. A big part of that has been their help in developing a list of guide posts that help us understand up front where a potential client might ultimately be approved. The following questions are our guide:
1. Someone who has not been hospitalized for bipolar disorder other than for diagnosis?
2. Someone who has not attempted suicide or had bouts with suicidal ideations?
3. Someone who is compliant with their treatment, both medications and regular followups?
4. Someone who is leading a stable family life or social life?
5. Someone who is exhibiting a stable work life?
6. Someone who is not on disability for bipolar and does not have issues with drinking or drugs? If there’s a problem here, then the answers to 3, 4 and 5 are no.
7. Some companies underwrite more favorably when the medications used aren’t anti-psychotic in nature, such as those who use the anti seizure disorder medication Depakote.
Bottom line. Great strides have been made and I can’t begin to tell you how good it is to be able to turn declines into approvals on a more and more consistent basis for those with bipolar disorder.
May 1st, 2009
I heard a story about a Met Life case today that just inspired me. Life insurance companies quite often do things they don’t necessarily have to, like paying a claim when the validity could probably be argued.
I’ve talked in previous posts about universal life policies that are guaranteed to age 121. There is even one out there that goes to 130, but the point is, and I have heard this straight from presidents of insurance companies, if a person outlives the guarantee the company will still keep the policy in force and pay the claim when the death occurs. Please note that I am in no way suggesting that term policies are treated that way!! The truth is that it’s the right thing to do and that is one reasons companies have committed to honoring those policies.
The other reason is that they don’t want to be known as the company that didn’t pay the claim on the oldest known person when they died. Bad PR move!
But back to Met Life. Met Life has an innovative program where they will convert other company’s term policies to permanent Met Life policies, just as if they were their own. It’s not a stupidly broad program in that it doesn’t allow conversion of any company, just a select 30 or so. But it’s kind of neat because with conversion options changing as the face of the no lapse UL changes, Met Life may have a better product than your current company, and as this story goes, Met Life’s conversion option had a feature that changed a person’s dying days.
This person had a term policy that didn’t have an accelerated death benefit rider, the rider that allows you to take a portion of the death benefit if you are terminally ill. It’s a great feature. Whether it is used to keep medical bills paid, or just to make you last days more memorable, it’s there and then when you pass away your beneficiary receives the balance of the death benefit. Anyway, this person’s policy didn’t have that feature but he was able to convert to a Met Life policy that did have that feature.
Remember that conversions don’t require evidence of insurability, so a conversion can be done even when someone is terminally ill. Met Life could have written this program to exclude this kind of a deal, allowing someone to gain benefits they didn’t have before, but they left that door open and this person was able to access 50% of their life insurance policy while they were still living. If they had stayed with their term policy they couldn’t have done that. How cool is that?
Bottom line. Most companies have an accelerated benefit rider these days, so this might not have been a big deal if he had been with almost any other company. But this is one of those deals where you just want to hug a company that knew this possibility existed and didn’t write it out of their program. Way to go Snoopy!
May 1st, 2009
Sleep apnea is one of those health issues that can elicit anything from a best rate class approval to a decline depending on two things, which company’s underwriter was involved and if you are truly treating the issue seriously.
A layman’s sleep apnea definition might give the wrong impression of why underwriters are concerned. Apnea is actually a period during sleep when a person quits breathing. It is almost always, when they start breathing again, followed by a loud snore or gasping. Sleep apnea is not a mortality issue in the sense that people quit breathing and don’t start again. Think of it as a more severe instance like those when you have been reading or something relaxing and you just haven’t been breathing deeply, and you suddenly have the need for a good deep breath.
So the issue isn’t about whether a person will forget to start breathing or not. Our body takes care of that quite well, albeit a bit loudly. The real issues have to do with the stress put on your body by two things. First, especially in more severe apnea where a person can quit breathing up to 50 times per hour, there is an issue with a lack of oxygen during sleeping hours. The other is that sleep apnea simply disrupts normal sleep patterns and makes for a tired, sleep deprived person the next day.
So the real mortality issues become sleep deprivation and the possibility of a higher rate of accidents, and the oxygen deprivation causing high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke. The other less talked about mortality issue is that your spouse may cause you substantial harm because of your snoring.
So, what do underwriters want to see for optimal results? A good sleep study that defines the problem as mild, moderate or severe. Mild or moderate bring the best results from a rate class standpoint. Probably the biggest issue for an underwriter is what you do about the apnea and how compliant you are with whatever treatment is chosen. If you have a sleep study with a cpap on that shows the cpap reduces your instances of apnea to almost nothing, but you then only use the cpap once in a while, or half the night, compliance is poor and control isn’t good. You aren’t going to win any underwriter points. Surgically corrected obstructive sleep apnea, if success is documented by a study, can put you back into best rate class running barring any other risk factors, such as obesity.
Bottom line. There are real reasons for underwriter caution with sleep apnea, but if you are serious about your approach to treatment there’s no reason you can’t walk away paying very reasonable rates.
May 1st, 2009
