Posts filed under 'alcohol treatment'
Not too long ago I discussed life insurance exam labs results. I mentioned that the tests were not always tests that would lead to a diagnosis of a specific problem, but were tests that often exposed the tip of the iceberg, where a more serious problem might lie hidden beneath.
One such case would be with the liver function test call a GGT, Gamma Glutamyl Transferase. This isn’t a test that you would normally find on your annual exam with your doctor. The truth is that doctors don’t run it and don’t see the value in it. They say it is too “nonspecific” to be of value.
The GGT simply put, measures irritation of the liver. Irritation of the liver can be caused by over the counter medication such as Ibuprofen. Elevation can be caused by drinking and of course, the irritation can potentially be just the beginning stages of something more serious such as cancer.
One of the most common culprits for an elevated GGT is heavy drinking. Not so heavy that extensive liver damage has been caused, but heavy enough that your liver is pretty irritated……at you. For this reason, when there is an elevated GGT on an insurance exam, there is a standing order to run a back up test called a CDT, Carbohydrate Deficient Transferrin. The CDT is known in the industry as an alcohol marker, a very reliable test for detecting heavy drinking. For those with a more clinical or inquisitive mind, here is an article that discusses liver functions and alcohol abuse in more detail.
Life insurance underwriters don’t mince words when it comes to a positive CDT. A positive CDT means that you are knocking back 4-5 drinks or more per day on an ongoing basis. It wasn’t caused by that party over the weekend. Binge drinking won’t cause a positive CDT. So the word from the underwriter that won’t be minced, or misunderstood, will be decline.
There was a company in the not too distant past that felt so strongly about the GGT being alcohol related, that if you had a DUI or alcohol treatment anywhere in your past, even 30 years in your past, even if your CDT was negative, and your GGT was elevated, it was an automatic decline.
Bottom line. Alcohol abuse has been shown in so many ways to have a negative impact on mortality, that life insurance companies simply don’t want to have anything to do with it if they can detect it up front.
September 22nd, 2007
I mentioned in a post the other day that one of my shortcomings is I have a very generalized philosophy that if a little bit of something is good for me, a lot of it should be great for me. If, whatever it is, can be used in monstrous quantities, who’s to say I may not be Superman?
Of course one of the things I was referring to was the often cited glass of wine per day being good for your heart. Then there is the aspirin a day recommendation. Why not knock down a handful of aspirin and a bottle of wine. If you could still walk you ought to be able to run a marathon.
My partner rained all over my parade today by forwarding a couple of articles, one designed to snatch that bottle of wine out of my hands, the other the bottle of aspirin . The day isn’t over yet. He will probably forward me an article about staying out of the sun to avoid skin cancer, thus ruining my weekend.
From a life insurance underwriting point of view he is probably right though. If, in my quest to avoid heart disease, I end up in alcohol treatment with bleeding intestines, my chances of impressing an underwriter with my intelligent thought process is probably pretty slim.
Bottom line. Moderation. If a little bit of something is good for you, use a little bit and let it be good for you.
September 7th, 2007
Clients are always surprised that their alcohol use can be an underwriting issue. Whether a person has been through alcohol treatment, has had a DUI, or just consumes higher than average amounts of alcohol, they present an underwriting challenge on more than one level.
Alcohol abuse carries with it both health and lifestyle issues that, without a doubt, have a mortality risk appropriately attached. When a life insurance underwriter is considering someone who has abused alcohol extensively enough to require treatment, they have to weigh the health issues such as liver damage and the life style issues such as alcohol induced depression and suicide, as well as the tendency toward DUI and the associated dangers inherent to that.
Heavy drinkers are often surprised when they are declined without ever having had a DUI, ever having been through treatment, or for that matter, ever admitting to the agent or the company that they even drink. What they didn’t expect was that, in general, if someone is drinkng excessively, whether there is any serious damage or not to the liver, the liver function tests on their labs will likely be elevated to some extent. When liver functions are elevated that generally will trigger another test that is an alcohol marker. If that comes back positive, you are not an occasional drinker unless you consider life to be the occasion. With elevated liver functions and a positive alcohol marker, I can’t think of any insurance company out there that wants to participate in your insurance.
Generally, as long as a DUI appears to be more reflective of a bad decision than a lifestyle, a good independent agent can find a company that will insure you within a year at very fair rates. Like speeding tickets, the further out you get from a DUI, the better the rates get and when you get 5 years out we can generally get a number of companies that are willing to consider their best rate class. Two DUI’s will present a bigger challenge because it has then passed over into a probable lifestyle issue. Multiple DUI’s is a tough sell anywhere until a person has a track record or an established change in the life style.
As with DUI, the further you are from alcohol treatment, the better the rates. Most companies are very cautious on this as the recurrence of alcohol abuse after treatment is substantial. A good track record and 10 years of demonstrated sobriety is usually what it will take to get back to the best rates.
Bottom line. Don’t try to slide heavy drinking through by just not mentioning it. You are better off admitting your alcohol use and letting your agent shop it. Understand that from a life insurance standpoint, alcohol abuse is treated very seriously and for very good reason.
July 21st, 2007
A Simon and Garfunkel song with the line, “my lack of education hasn’t hurt me none”. Well that may be just fine for most life insurance agents, but the fact that it hasn’t “hurt them none” isn’t really the point. How many clients are financially damaged every day by life insurance agents who refuse to learn about their own business?
You should see the test it takes to become a life insurance agent. It’s not even meant to weed out those that who were to lazy to study. Even the continuing education courses are for the most part a joke.
So it’s just sales right? What do you need to know other than “what will it take to get you to drive away in this life insurance policy today”? Well, allow me to express my opinion on this based on far more years in the business than the average agent will ever last.
If I were teaching the school, closing the sale would be left out. Knowledge of impairments, knowledge of insurance and estate law, and good customer service would be the curriculum.
How can an agent hope to do the best possible job for someone with heart disease or a history of cancer if you don’t know what the results of a stress test or a pathology report mean? How can an agent advise a client who is treated for depression if they don’t know the difference between situational or chronic depression? How can an agent hope to help someone who has been through drug or alcohol treatment if they don’t know how underwriters from different companies view the issue? How can an agent help a private pilot find the best life insurance pilot if they don’t know the difference between IFR and VFR? The answer to all of these is the agent can’t properly help those clients because they haven’t bothered to educate themselves.
How can an agent give proper advice about the use of life insurance in estate preservation if they don’t understand estate tax law? How can an agent advise a client on the need for a life insurance trust if they don’t understand the tax law that applies? How can an agent even represent the products unless they know the regulatory implications of their advice? Again, they can’t!!
A poorly educated life insurance agent is bad for the client and bad for the business. I honestly believe that states shouldn’t take the licensing of agents so lightly. A person should have to prove knowledge way beyond what is currently required before they are ever allowed to give advice to someone about matters that will impact that person’s family in critical ways.
And you ask why does this bother me so much? Because it allows someone with a gift for selling to give bad advice and damage clients and get paid for it. Just my opinion of course.
June 7th, 2007
I think I’ve mentioned before that there is a real propensity in the life insurance business for agents to be so protective of a potential sale that they will actually tell a customer they are uninsurable, rather than admit they are the wrong agent for the job.
There isn’t a week that goes by without hearing from people who are desperate to find affordable life insurance. They have been told they are uninsurable because they had a heart attack. They’ve been told they will never get insurance because they’ve had breast cancer or because they are type 2 diabetic. I’ve had clients who are never called back by another agent because they admitted they had been through alcohol treatment.
Agents actually tell these people “you will never get life insurance”. In the whole scheme of things I get to talk to only a handful of these abused people. I can only imagine how many just give up and leave their family without protection because some lame excuse for a life insurance agent didn’t have the guts to just tell their client to seek out a more experienced independent agent.
I’ve always said that if you talk to an agent and they declare you uninsurable without running your information informally through several underwriters, they are either captive or incompetent. If they say they’ve shopped it and you are simply uninsurable and they don’t talk to you about guaranteed issue life insurance, they are captive or incompetent.
The bottom line is that agents very often declare you uninsurable because they aren’t knowledgable in your impairment or are too lazy to work an impaired risk case. No one said it’s easy, but quoting Rich Fuller from Special Risk Services, an impaired risk general agent for 30 years, “Anyone can write insurance on the super healthy, but the reward is placing much needed insurance for someone who has suffered severe health problems”.
Never, never take uninsurable as an answer without doing an internet search for an agent with the expertise you need.
June 1st, 2007
Whether it is youthful indiscretion or taking the wrong route in dealing with with real life grown up issues, alcohol and drug abuse are no stranger to anyone. If we haven’t been there ourselves, we certainly know of someone who has. Some never get past it. Either they avoid treatment or go from program to program never quite finding the answer.
Because of all the the health and lifestyle repercussions of substance abuse, life insurance companies take a very serious look at the issues of drug treatment and alcohol treatment.
Even the most agressive companies want to see at least 5 years after treatment before they will offer even standard rates. Most want to see 10 years post treatment before they will offer preferred rates. Coverage can be obtained in less time than that, but it is likely to come in the form of a rated policy. Even then, time is not the only factor. Insurance companies want to see that you are part of a support group such as NA and AA. They know the chance of serious relapse goes way down when you are serious about surrounding yourself with a support system.
They also want to see job and family stability. This is where an independent agent who is knowledgeable in underwriting these types of cases can be very valuable. The agent will know what insurance company is the best fit and how best to structure an application. A life insurance application that involves drug or alcohol abuse and treatment should always be accompanied by cover letters. I usually recommend a letter from the spouse, employer, counselor and clergy. These are people who know the extent of the problem and the extent of the recovery.
Generally if someone is 2 to 5 years out from treatment I would recommend they look at 10 year term insurance. It will be the least expensive way to get the coverage your family needs, and then once you reach the 5 or 10 year threshhold, replace it with a longer term or universal life policy depending on your needs.
The good news is that your life started over when you go to treatment, and while cautiously, life insurance companies are willing to take a serious look at insuring that new life.
May 30th, 2007
No there’s a couple of items there that are taken very seriously by life insurance underwriters. During an initial interview with a good independent agent they are going to ask about any history of alcohol abuse, treatment for alcohol or drug abuse and any dui’s you may have had. May seem a bit invasive for your first chat with that person, but let’s be honest, these issues, depending on when they happened and how severe the problem was or is, can have a definite effect on mortality.
Several underwriting issues come into play when alcohol is abused. Very often, for those who don’t fess up to being heavy drinkers, the underwriter gets the first hint from elevated liver functions. Liver is working overtime for some reason and one of the most common is the attempt to metabolize alcohol. Very often when elevated liver functions are found the company will run an alcohol marker test which will indicate if a person has driven their liver to distraction with alcohol or if there is some other reason for the elevation.
So, one of the first issues is that of health. If you are doing damage to your liver, then chances are you are putting yourself at risk for other health issues.
Next, and by no means second to the health issues, is the issue of lifestyle and alcohol abuse. Alcohol and drug abuse can both lead to some very poor lifestyle choices that can impact mortality.
And of course DUI speaks for itself. There is the very real potential to kill yourself or someone else if you are drinking and driving. Killing yourself is an obvious mortality issue and ending up in jail for vehicular homicide presents a second issue an underwriter needs to consider. Life insurance companies aren’t real keen on insuring people who may kill themselves or end up in jail. They take special exception to a person with a recent dui that is also a private pilot.
Now the good news. Time does heal. Kind of like traffic violations and your car insurance, the further you are from the last incident, the better the chances of getting good rates. So, given time most companies will allow that DUI to melt away. Do it more than once and it won’t melt near as fast though.
Alcohol and drug abuse and the ensuing treatment also can be insured after some time. Companies do like to see that you have sought professional help and they also like to see preventive measures such as being a member of AA or NA.
Given enough time, any of these issues can get all the way back to best rates. Check with a good independent agent if any of these issues are in your past.
April 11th, 2007
