Posts filed under 'asthma'
I went off a bit on some of the more ridiculous combinations with smoking the other day. Smoking and asthma. Smoking and heart disease, etc. Some guy (blog name Joe Camel (clever)), took some hard swings at the life insurance industry for being so mean to smokers. Fortunately for me smokers run out of breath quick and the hard swings turn to frail flailing.
So let me throw a little different spin on this subject and see if makes the point. 120,000 people a year die from COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), almost all of them smokers. COPD is the number four killer in the US behind heart disease, cancer and strokes.
The American Lung Association shared some interesting facts about the little talked about COPD.
It seems that COPD is another one of those silent killers, not unlike high blood pressure or hypertension. Often the symptoms are shrugged off as natural consequences of smoking or lifestyle. Things like smoker’s cough, or just feeling your age or feeling out of shape. The longer they are shrugged off, the more damage your lungs suffer.
Bottom line. Whether you agree with life insurance companies and their underwriting guidelines around smoking, do the right thing. My wife and I recently vacationed in Mexico and in the duty free shop at the airport they were selling huge boxes of cigarettes. I think each box must have held 10 cartons or something. On the top was the brand name of the cigarette and on the side, in huge letters that covered the whole side of the box, it said SMOKING KILLS! Sounds like someone down there understands the statistics.
May 22nd, 2008
A perfectly healthy person who smokes can expect to pay, best case, twice as much as a person who doesn’t smoke for life insurance. I’ve been on that soap box often enough that I don’t know that I need to beat it to death anymore.
With that being said, there are other times when smoking can have an even more profound impact on underwriting. An underwriter I know and work with on a regular basis calls the extra premium or sometimes the decline that results from smoking in addition to certain health issues as a “you just can’t fix stupid tax”.
We’ll start with the flagrant examples and work our way back toward some of the more subtle. By the way, all of these examples are from people who have actually called me attempting to get life insurance. A person who has diagnosed COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) and still smokes has apparently missed something somewhere and is a slam dunk decline.
A person with an otherwise insurable history of cancer, if they smoke, would either suffer a much higher rating or be declined because they haven’t quite grasped the fact that there is a direct correlation between abusing your body and bad things happening.
One that comes up fairly frequently is the person who has suffered a heart attack or been diagnosed with CAD (coronary artery disease) and still smokes. Hellooo!!!! The doctor said you need to quit. Your wife said you need to quit. The surgeon general said you need to quit. Your mother is going to outlive you because you refuse to get a grip and do the right thing.
Asthma and smoking. Depending on the severity of the asthma, this can be reasonably insurable to highly rated. It’s frankly never made a lot of sense to me. If you have trouble just breathing air, why would you substitute smoke for air? Kind of like if you had trouble swallowing water, substituting mud.
Bottom line. Life insurance underwriting allows for insuring smokers in most cases. Higher rates will always apply when comparing smokers to non smokers. I’ve never been shy about ripping the heads off underwriters when I think they’ve got it wrong. When it comes to smoking combined with smoking caused or exacerbated health issues, I believe they’re right on target.
May 15th, 2008
I had a call earlier today from a long time friend that is going to be coming through. Bob has asthma and quizzed me about whether we still had cats or not. More than once he has decided not to stay the night because cats and his asthma just don’t mix.
Now Bob knows I’m a life insurance agent and he knows I’m a bit of a brutal blogger on some subjects, so I am armed with a new study that shows that if my friend would just lose some weight, cats and asthma would likely be less of an issue.
This fairly large study showed that BMI 30 obesity level folks were 66% more likely to have asthma symptoms on a consistent basis than even those who were just considered overweight, BMI 25-29. Bob has always floated between those two categories depending on his level of exercise.
I have another out for my cats though. Bob and I inevitably share several good laughs when we get together, sharing stories and comparing notes on whose kids can mess up better than the other’s. I also found a study about laughter induced asthma. According to this study LIA (yes, they gave it an acronym) is as common or more common than most allergy induced asthma.
From a life insurance standpoint asthma has to meet the same thresholds as many other health issues. The biggest of these are compliance and control. If a person takes the situation seriously and complies with medical direction, the asthma will be well controlled and therefore pose less of a health threat.
Bottom line. Bob is a friend among friends. One of those guys that is always there for you. I hope my advice that he lose the weight once and for all and stop laughing isn’t taken wrong.
May 6th, 2008
