Posts filed under 'Build'
Genworth Life, the former First Colony branch of GE Financial slipped under the radar of a lot of us in the business with a major change in their build chart.
The new chart was actually released in late October but really didn’t start getting any attention until the first of the year. The company claims it released the changes as part of a nearly 30 page memo back in October, but it seems to have blown right by most of the industry, a shame since it opens up new opportunities with more liberal guidelines than ever before.
Prudential has long had the most liberal preferred plus build requirements, but have had the quirky stance of having the same height and weight requirements apply to both their first and second rate class. The new chart from Genworth is not only more liberal than Pru, for instance Pru’s 5′10, 203# trumped by Genworth’s 5′10, 209#, but in Genworth’s second rate rate, their preferred class allows an on average an additional 20#. Another plus is that for those 65 or older, the weight starts a generous 20# more than for us youngsters.
A full overview of the new guidelines really paints a picture of possibilities as Genworth is a very competitive term and no lapse UL company to start with. Given the advantage of potentially gaining a rate class or two over the competition, they may be headed toward cornering part of the market that no one has aggressively gone after.
Bottom line. It is the advantage of using an independent agent that these types of changes are watched for and clients made aware of potential savings. This is just another classic example of why we shop cases even when they seem pretty straight forward.
January 11th, 2010
There is a common misconception, especially among those who have pretty extreme weight issues, that life insurance simply isn’t available. With most, but not all, companies they would be right.
Obesity carries with it a lot of mortality baggage that most insurance companies would really rather not deal with. They see the glass as half empty so to speak. When they see an application for someone, say 5′10″ and 370#, even in the absence of any other health issues they can’t seem to get past the fact that obesity is in fact a risk factor for a lot of problems such has high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer and stroke.
Some companies can’t get past that and see their way to an approval. That is not to say that the companies that will approve a policy on a severe weight issue are ignoring the potential consequences, but they are giving some leeway for the fact that those problems haven’t shown up yet. This gives some advantage to younger applicants as, just like diabetes, obesity tends to wear your body down over time. You are far less likely to have been impacted by obesity in your 30’s and 40’s than later in life.
The good news whether you are in your 30’s or in your 50’s or older is that if you have managed to maintain good health, other than your weight, reasonable rates are available. Some companies, like Prudential, even bump their build scale up after age 65 sort of acknowledging that not all of us can hold our stomach in forever.
Bottom line. There are times when you really won’t qualify for traditional insurance based on height and weight, but in most cases that isn’t true. A good independent agent can guide you to the right company for your build.
October 30th, 2009
It’s been no secret since I followed the Biggest Loser reality series, that while the obesity and BMI challenged might pay a little more for their life insurance than folks that are under the BMI threshold for overweight, there are companies that do offer fair rates as long as there aren’t a bunch of other risk factors rearing their ugly heads.
A client just recently inquired and his build was 6′3, 325. He didn’t have any health issues. One of the best companies around for build is West Coast Life, but based on their underwriting take on this the $1,000,000 30 year term he wanted was going to be $3200+ annually, a budget buster. They stuck to their written guidelines and wouldn’t go better than a table C, which is 175% of the standard rate.
When I shopped it to Prudential, even though based on their guidelines it would have been about the same as West Coast Life, I got a refreshing answer from the underwriter. This underwriter knew the kind of issues to look for in someone who is overweight and they said they would go with a straight standard rate as long as:
“1. BP for last 12 months 130/85 or under
2. Fasting blood glucose 110 or under
3. Cholesterol 275 or under
4. HDL 40 or over
5. Chol ratio 7.0 or under.”
Well, he nailed it. His blood pressure was 110/68, glucose 79, cholesterol 168 and HDL 41 making his cholesterol ratio 4.1. I guess what struck me as refreshing about this whole scenario was that the underwriter wasn’t just throwing my client in a box with everyone of similar build. They started him in the box and told them what it would take to get out, and he did. Home Run!
Bottom line. Thanks to Prudential’s forward thinking underwriters my client is paying less than $1800 annually for the same policy that, best case, would have cost $3200 elsewhere.
March 20th, 2009
We’ve talked a lot about obesity and overweight issues and how build affects life insurance rates. A person’s build, their height and weight and how that is distributed, is probably one of the biggest sore spots in life insurance underwriting, at least to clients. Unlike lab results like cholesterol or liver functions, or medical tests like blood pressure measurements, people can jump on the denial train with weight in a few different ways. You won’t generally find them running to a BMI chart for help.
The most common argument thrown about to justify weight is that “I’m a large boned person”. To kind of put this in context let’s draw a couple of pictures of life insurance applicants. One is 5′10″, 185#’s. The other is 5′10″, 240#.
Personally I think the large boned thing is real. I don’t think they’re lying abut that, maybe just using it a bit beyond reality. While I couldn’t find any reliable articles that actually substantiated the the big bone theory, I did some figuring on my own. The following is the big boned facts according to Ed, one of the luxuries of having your own blog. I’m 5′10″, 175#. Not skinny and not fat. I’m pretty sure I’m not big boned either. Just for the sake of argument, and I’m pretty sure I’ll start one, let’s say that “big bones” may add 10% to a person’s body mass. That means that if I was big boned I might weigh 192 pounds or so.
The problem is that generally the folks trying to use the big boned theory are trying to explain away a lot more than 10%. In other words, what life insurance underwriters hear a lot of, is someone 5′10″ and 230#’s saying they are large boned. I guess the bottom line from my unscientific best guesses is that they may very well be large boned, but those large bones are also very well protected. Wouldn’t want to break a large bone after all. Bigger bones seem like they might take a lot longer to heal.
The other argument thrown out there for larger than average builds is that the person is a weight lifter, a body builder. Now this is a tough argument. There isn’t any doubt that a true body builder has substantially extra muscle mass and weight. 5′10″ and 230#’s might very well be the optimal weight for the true body builder. That’s just a guess, so if you are a body builder and that is really fat or skinny, I didn’t mean to offend you. It still won’t get you to the same rate class as your tiny counter part though.
Back to my two examples though. At 5′10, 185#’s a person, absent any health issues, should qualify for the best rates with most insurance companies. At 240#’s a person would qualify for a standard rate at best. The difference for a 45 year old buying $500,000 of 20 year term insurance is $610 a year if you’re the small guy and $1110 a year if you’re the large guy.
There used to be a lot of wiggle room when it came to the issue of rate. Most of us agents that have been around for a while remember that as the good old days. It’s a different underwriting world than it was three years ago.
As for the big boned person. Well, a build chart is a build chart and every life insurance company has one. They have to draw the line somewhere and absent a dissection to prove the big boned theory…….honestly even with the dissection, the underwriter will stick to the build chart.
Bottom line. Now take heart. Not all companies use the same chart and an independent agent can often find you a better rate class than you might otherwise be stuck with. While there is very little wiggle room on a company’s best rate class, and these aren’t the good old days, they will occasionally bend a bit as long as all other risk factors are in your favor.
March 11th, 2009
As life insurance agents we are provided with a set of underwriting guidelines for each company we represent. It tells us, rate class by rate class, what cholesterol, build, blood pressure, family history and so on are acceptable.
In the good old days which ended a few years ago, the guidelines were truly guidelines, not hard and fast rules. If for instance someone has a total cholesterol of 203 and and cholesterol/hdl ratio of 5.1, well, logic would lead the underwriter to see that while 5.0 is their guideline, 5.1 is very close and since 220 is also their guideline, 203 is better and trumps the 5.1.
Not so these days in far too many cases. They still call them guidelines but many life insurance underwriters are treating them has hard and fast rules, not to be breeched for any reason.
And then there are companies, like ING Reliastar, who like to give you a range of guidelines to hang yourself with. What follows is an example that I am currently jousting with them about.
Their guidelines for cholesterol for the preferred rate class read as follows, “Age 0-70: Chol max 240 + ratio not > 5.5 OR Chol max 260 + ratio not > 5.0′. I have a client whose lab results showed a total cholesterol of 253 and a ratio of 5.12. They, using the two examples, say that my client doesn’t fit into preferred. Being a logical kind of guy I created the following graph.
graph
Being techno challenged, my graph needs to be spun to the left. That done, the line is a logical line between the guidelines stated by ING and the lone dot is my client. Being to the left of the line and below the top it seems to be safely resting within their guidelines. In this case it seems that even if ING wanted to make their guidelines into rules, my client should still get preferred.
With all the changes in the way reinsurance companies treat insurance company underwriting, wiggle room is hard to find these days. It no longer matters in many cases whether the decision makes sense from a mortality standpoint. Decisions come down every day that defy logic and therein lies the value of a good independent agent. We can debate the case up the line and if we don’t overcome the forces with that company, we can shop it until we find someone who agrees.
Bottom line. If the war is to get affordable life insurance for all who want it and need it, above is a snapshot of the kind of battles we fight.
December 30th, 2008
Today would be no exception to my rule that men really don’t see a world that has consequences until they are old enough that they see the consequences happening to others their own age, or even to themselves.
I spent part of yesterday evening in the emergency room with my nephew who had finally conceded that three hours worth of rapid heart beat (85-110) and high blood pressure (160/110 as measured at Walmart) was reason enough to see a professional. He is 38 years old and by his own admission, inactive and at 6′3, 250, overweight.
I cut him some slack last night, but today let’s discuss his experience. His self admission of being overweight was actually cutting himself some slack. He knows about body mass index (BMI) as well as I do and he knows that his build puts him solidly in the obesity category. “Overweight” is a way many of us use to gloss over the fact that obesity carries with it a number of potential health issues, only one of which became all to real to him last night.
As we waited for lab results and talked, he admitted that he hadn’t been to a doctor in three years. This is a guy who reads my blog and knows my opinion of guys (yes, including me) and their stupidity about their own health. He confessed that his real concern with the labs that were being worked on was that he would be found to have type 2 diabetes, one of the risks of obesity, a risk he knows about all too well because he is also a life insurance agent who works with diabetics frequently. He admitted that he has had concerns about his blood pressure because of his lifestyle. All that is to say that he was aware that he was probably due for some health problems.
My nephew was no different than my average client laying in the emergency room last night. He knew he has been heading down the wrong road for a while. He knew that, at some point, his lack of attention to his health could hurt him or kill him, yet he did very little to change that direction. He bought a bike that he doesn’t ride. He doesn’t like to walk, so he doesn’t. The only thing last night that set him apart from the average guy is that he went to the ER knowing that he has an adequate amount of life insurance in force.
So, why regular checkups? For my nephew, one good reason would be that he would be hearing from a professional that he was treading on thin ice with obesity, a recipe for disaster. For all of us it could well give us that advantage of an early diagnosis of something that can be serious left undetected. If we flip through life with our immortality shield up, never getting checkups, a heart attack could be how you find out you have heart disease or diabetes. A stroke could be the way we find out about hypertension, the silent killer. Regular checkups are wake up calls that don’t hurt.
Bottom line. Prayers were answered last night and my nephew, with a fresh look at life, should be fine. We should all work harder at being proactive about our health. There are people that would miss us.
December 14th, 2008
This is mostly a rhetorical life insurance quiz for guys. There are no guarantees that you will be approved for life insurance at all, although most are. And there certainly aren’t any guarantees that you be approved at the rate class you applied for.
All of us, except me, really want and kind of expect to be approved at the best rate class. I’ve kind of given up on that best rate class. I got it once several years ago, but age and a few health issues have moved me down the food chain a bit. You’ve seen the commercials. “A 45 year old man can get $500,000 of term insurance for just $27 per month”.
If you’re fast enough and if the people doing the commercial were honest enough you would catch the fine print going something like, “for a 10 year term as long as you fit into our build chart, don’t have any family history of heart disease, cancer or diabetes, have never seen a doctor for anything other than a cold or flu, don’t take any prescription medications, have never been arrested and have a good driving record, don’t have any hobbies more dangerous than putt putt golf, don’t travel to foreign countries that don’t love Americans (that would be none this week), and don’t drink too much or do drugs”.
There are a lot of people who fit that criteria and get the best rate. It is not, as some like to say, a Superman rate. It is simply held out there for those who are healthiest. So what happens when you have your heart set on $27 per month and your cholesterol is too high or your family history prevents you from getting that approval?
Well, a lot of people, especially guys, like to take their bat and ball and go home. They would literally rather go without than pay a rate that is higher than they think they deserve. This has always seemed like such a bizarre stance to me. “I can’t get the best rate, so if I die I would rather my wife has nothing!” That just seems a bit on the childish side to me.
Why not, if you had your heart set on $27 a month for $500,000, and you get approved and all that $27 will buy is $400,000, take it. That’s taking responsibility by the horns and letting your loved ones know you love them more than you love yourself.
Bottom line. Something in force is always better than nothing and if it’s a health thing like cholesterol that kept you from getting what you wanted, put as much as you can in force and work on that health issue. Far better to work on health things with life insurance in force than not.
September 29th, 2008
Virtually all life insurance companies take your immediate family health history into consideration at some level. They don’t all view it the same and they certainly don’t all treat it the same, but it is in their guidelines and they seldom waiver.
This probably ticks people off far more than finding out something is wrong with their own health picture such as having high cholesterol on the life insurance exam or perhaps high blood pressure. Probably one of the toughest for a client to swallow is when a company penalizes them because a parent who smoked dies prior to age 60 of lung cancer when the client, having watched that whole scene, has never touched a cigarette. Another that is just about as tough a pill is when their rate is effected because their father died of a heart attack at age 48 after drinking, smoking and eating their way into the obesity hall of fame when they don’t smoke, don’t drink and exercise regularly.
So, is it fair? Well, the way I see that is if it happens to me, then no, but if I’m a life insurance underwriter, then yes. I have discussed this at length with underwriters and they understand that taking a black and white stance on family history will be unfair to some. But, any underwriting guideline that is black and white and produces the same result for a rate class for everyone, is going to be unfair to some.
Just a few examples of the latter and then back to family history. All companies use build charts and approve rates based on your build. They know that plenty of people who are 5′10, 250# live to ripe old ages, but they also know that at that weight the chances are much greater of having diabetes, heart disease and cancer. All companies test for cholesterol and approve rates that reflect your cholesterol numbers. They know that plenty of people with high cholesterol never develop heart disease or have heart attacks, but they know that the chances are greater of that happening if you have high cholesterol.
So, family history. Even though your father appeared to have done himself in by smoking, drinking and eating doesn’t mean that you are not genetically predisposed to heart disease. And just because you don’t smoke like your parent who died from lung cancer doesn’t mean that you aren’t genetically predisposed to cancer.
The good news is that, as I mentioned up front, not all companies share the same beliefs, and a good independent agent can usually find a company that will take most of the sting, if not all of it, out of any family history issues.
Bottom line. Rather than taking offense or trying to justify family history, ask your agent how they can take what you have and make it work for you.
August 20th, 2008
I have often written about the downside of life insurance underwriting of weight issues, but there actually an upside. Back when I was posting weekly about the reality TV shows Fat March and Biggest Loser, while I did point out the health issues that can be caused by obesity, I also provided some very good news when it comes to the prices that a few companies offer on people with weight issues.
Let’s face it. We live in a heavier America than I grew up in. That being a reality drives home the need for affordable life insurance for those who are overweight, even obese, but really don’t have any health issues. Gaining weight doesn’t generally impact your health adversely for some time. It is the years of your body working to accommodate all the extra pounds that eventually takes it’s toll. So, before that happens, or while you’re in the process of getting your weight under control, consider putting life insurance in force.
To kind of put this into context, let’s assume a 50 year old male is looking for $250,000 of 20 year term insurance. No health issues, but his build is 6′, 260#. With most companies that will be approved at a standard rate based on the average build chart. This surprises clients occasionally. Yes, companies have build charts and yes, your build does impact your rate class.
The best rate available for our client is $510 annually with Savings Bank Life. West Coast Life isn’t far behind at $542.50. But what if his weight happens to be 280#? Because you have knocked the back wall out of Savings Bank’s build chart their rate would jump to $735 annually. West Coast Life would still be at $542.50.
This is another one of those times, you guessed it, when you really need to have an independent agent who can shop all of the companies and find out where to accommodate both your budget and those extra pounds. Once you have that coverage in force, work on your weight and let your agent work on acquiring lower rates as you slim down.
Bottom line. Insurance is going to cost you more if you are overweight than the rates you see advertised, but don’t let that stop you from doing the right thing. Get coverage in force and know that your responsibilities are taken care of.
June 19th, 2008
We continue to get inquiries and continue to have success in finding affordable life insurance for people with a history of sleep apnea. This is another one of those areas where the majority of companies still have a knee jerk reaction built into their underwriting guidelines that produces either a highly rated or decline outcome.
This outcome could be appropriate in some cases of severe apnea combined with other risk factors such as morbid obesity and poorly controlled blood pressure. The problem is that the majority of companies don’t allow for the fact that there are different levels of severity and different levels of control. To put it simply, from a mortality impact standpoint there is a huge difference between poorly controlled severe sleep apnea with other risk factors, and, for lack of a better term, your garden variety well controlled mild sleep apnea with no other risk factors.
Generally speaking, from an underwriting standpoint, if the apnea is mild to moderate, well controlled by use of a cpap, and the user is compliant with use and followup, rates as good as preferred can be found. Preferred rates would obviously be contingent on the person meeting preferred guidelines in all other areas. Well controlled sleep apnea and a build of 6′0, 330#’s doesn’t get you there.
Bottom line. An independent agent should know what questions to ask and what companies to shop your business to in order to get the most bang for your life insurance buck.
May 21st, 2008
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