Not a week goes that I am not called by someone with a history of cancer. It can be as common and treatable as prostate cancer or breast cancer, or as unpredictable as multiple myeloma. They would like to have life insurance, just like anyone, but insurance quotes take more information and leg work than if your health issue was high cholesterol.

Unless a client has saved all of the reports and paperwork, it often means going back to doctors and asking for the information. But let me be real clear about this, there is no way that I, or any other agent or agency out there, can accurately quote life insurance with a history of cancer without the pathology. The only exception to that hard and fast rule would be a history of basal cell carcinoma, the most common and least deadly of all cancers.

So, when someone says they had breast cancer or prostate cancer, the next question coming from me is, “do you remember the stage and grade of the cancer?” Most of the time the answer is no. They might remember that it was an early stage or a low grade but those terms are about as generic and useless as they sound. Those are the things oncologists say because frankly they don’t want the patient burdened with details that they won’t understand.

Personally I think having that information allows a person to truly educate themselves on what they are facing and what their options are. Knowing the actual pathology opens the door to enlisting 2nd opinions. With all of the information available on the internet it also gives you the information needed to know if you would have other treatment options available.

From a life insurance underwriting standpoint, no matter what type of cancer you had, the earlier the stage and the lower the grade the better, but in order to shop it those have to be actual values and not just lower and better. An example might, simply stated, be a stage 1, grade 1 cancer. With breast cancer a stage 1 tumor measures less than 2cm/1in. Stage 0 would be an insitu, or fully encapsulated tumor. The lymph nodes in the armpit are not affected and there are no signs that the cancer has spread elsewhere in the body. A grade 1 breast cancer means that the cancer cells look very like the normal cells of the breast. They are usually slow growing and are less likely to spread.

Pathology is the key to the rating of the policy. It means, in most cases that clients will need to make a call or go by the oncologist’s office to get a copy of the pathology report. It’s not a big deal and shouldn’t require an appointment or cost anything. If you have paperwork from your cancer treatment stored, check and see if the pathology report is mixed in with that.

Find an independent agent, preferably one knowledgeable enough to know that you needed that report, and review the entire history from diagnosis through treatment to recovery and cure. Not all cancers are created equal, so stay open to what you will hear from the agent. It might be a good quote and it might be information on how long you will have to wait before you can get offers on life insurance.

Bottom line. Many types of cancer are insurable at very affordable rates within a short period after the end of treatment, so do the home work and Google your type of cancer and life insurance. Try to pick through and find truly independent agents who stand out as having a good understanding of how to get you from point A to approval.

Post from: Ed Hinerman On Life Insurance

You Can’t Get From Here To There Without It!!

Some years ago the life insurance underwriting world went into a tizzy because a study had come out insinuating that a person who had multiple basal cell carcinomas, a truly non lethal skin cancer, had a higher chance of having a melanoma, a truly lethal form of skin cancer.

This led most companies to treat multiple basal cell carcinomas more harshly than a single incidence. In most cases a single basal cell carcinoma would still be eligible for preferred plus rates as long as all other risk factors were good. With multiple cases (more than one) many companies changed their guideline rate to standard.

This stance has since softened and again most companies, even with multiple incidents, will still consider best rate class.

I worked on a case just recently where a client had a mole removed that “displayed dysplastic nevi”. Because the mole was benign we had expected the best rate class and were surprised when Savings Bank Life bumped the case one rate class due to a study that insinuated that a mole displaying dysplastic nevi could lead to a higher chance of melanoma. So, here we go again.

We shopped the case and found that the opinion is almost equally split on the subject. Many of the companies were still willing to consider their best rate class while some were going to offer no better than standard.

With a long history of working with clients with skin cancer I almost get the sense that insurance companies are trying to make more out of the possibilities than they need to. Even the two groups that I just mentioned, while some studies indicate a potential higher mortality, the truth is that unless they also live in Arizona, they may have a lower mortality risk than people who live in a sunshine laden place like the desert states.

Bottom line. It really comes down to my often espoused advice. If you have any kind of health history use an independent agent who can properly shop for you and make sure that you aren’t unnecessarily leaving one or two or three rate classes on the table.

Post from: Ed Hinerman On Life Insurance

Did Your Mole Have Dysplastic Nevi?

I worked on an interesting case several years ago, a doctor who had a history of high grade non Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. He had undergone chemo and radiation and had not had a recurrence in several years, I think it was six at the time.

What made the case a little different was that the client was a clinical pathologist. He worked with cancer pathology every day at one of the biggest hospitals in the south. Suffice it to say that he knew a little bit about the reality of his cancer and in order to help me shop the case he supplied articles supporting his case that with high grade NHL, if you win the battle you’ve won the war. In other words, if the treatment works there is virtually no chance of recurrence.

I was used to working from the other direction. The higher the grade of the cancer, the worse chance of finding any offer, let alone a good one. He concurred that from a mortality perspective that was true even with NHL, unless the treatment worked. If it didn’t work, high grade NHL was just like any other high grade cancer, it won the war and usually quickly.

So we shopped his case and we got one offer, a rated offer, but a real offer that turned into a real approval and life insurance in force. We shopped it again the next year and got 3 offers and replaced his first policy with the best of those. We shopped it two more times and each time we were able to improve his rate. The last approval was at a standard plus rate.

I am currently shopping another case of NHL and given a high grade and low stage (2), the first offer we got back is a standard rate. Stage and grade, a low stage and grade, is what I’ve always driven home as the keys to the best possible rates with cancer history. Non Hodgkin’s Lymphoma would be the exception to that rule. If it is a moderate to high grade and low stage and you survived the treatment, good rates can be found. With NHL a low grade is where the trouble lies because it can keep recurring even with treatment.

Bottom line. It seems there’s always an exception to a rule and in life insurance for cancer survivors, this is the one case where the higher the grade, the better the result.

Post from: Ed Hinerman On Life Insurance

Non Hodgkins Lymphoma And Life Insurance!

My Dad died just over a year ago after a two year battle with bladder cancer. I say battle, but he was really in good health (other than the cancer) and good spirits right up to the last few weeks. He was 86 and led an amazingly full, blessed life.

When a parent dies sometimes it brings our own mortality a little closer in a way. We’re the next in line. You know the train of thought. But today is one of those days that makes the frailty of life all to clear. A 33 year old man, a construction worker, had a massive stroke today and was airlifted out to Denver. He’s married and has children and is the bread winner. We’re all praying that he survives and comes through OK.

But there are always these times. I’m sure I’m not just the odd duck that knows all the wrong people. My first wife died at age 33 of cancer. That stuff isn’t supposed to happen.

My present (and forever) wife’s first husband died in his 40′s from leukemia. He died when my now step daughters were in their early teens.

A doctor friend of ours was in his late 30′s when he went to a conference out in California. When his wife couldn’t get in touch with him they found him dead in his motel room from a heart attack.

My brother in law’s first wife died in her 50′s from cancer. There have been a lot of deaths in my church family of the past 13 years. Some, like my Dad, lived a good long life, but too many were young. Too many died way too soon.

How close it’s been through my adult life. I bought life insurance long before I ever considered being in the business. Too many people I knew were left with huge holes in their lives and I didn’t want my wife or children to have financial problems added to an inexplicable loss.

Bottom line. How close does it need to come before you get it?

Post from: Ed Hinerman On Life Insurance

How Close Does It Need To Come?

Lung cancer is one of the most deadly cancers in the world today, accounting for 18% of worldwide cancer related deaths. It has also, in all my years of studying and following breakthroughs in early detection, been the most stubborn in avoiding advances in clinical diagnosis.

Now, finally, some potentially great news. As with most other cancers, early detection of lung cancer is key to beating the disease with the least amount of damage. Currently only about 15% of lung cancer is caught in the earliest stages. Scientists in Israel may have turned that tide with a breathalyzer that can detect early stage cancer in more than 80% of cases.

The breathalyzer has been able to successfully test for VOC’s, volatile organics compounds that are present in lung cancer patients but not in people without lung cancer.

Lung cancer is a tough enough sell in life insurance underwriting in a best case scenario, so increasing the numbers that are detected early and treated successfully could be helpful in opening a few more doors. Currently lung cancer is one of the hardest, right up there with colon cancer, to get approvals on without a very long history of no recurrence.

Bottom line. The key with life insurance and cancer is early detection, low stage and grade, successful treatment and high survival rates for the particular cancer. Breast cancer and prostate cancer are two great examples where early detection gets better all the time and, combined with high survivability, leans toward more frequent and better life insurance approvals.

Post from: Ed Hinerman On Life Insurance

Breakthrough In Lung Cancer Detection!

Life insurance is, always has been and always will be, about offsetting those financial losses that come with premature death. The problem that most people have with the concept is, that in spite of all of the evidence to the contrary, they seem to have a hard time believing that premature death is an issue.

Well, today we’ve all been witness to people that we knew, maybe not personally, but nevertheless, people we knew dying far too young.

We woke this morning to news that Farrah Fawcett had succumbed to long battle with cancer. At age 62, just 6 years old than me, she died. Women are supposed to live to 79 these days. She wasn’t supposed to die.

And then just minutes ago we found out that Michael Jackson passed away at age 50 apparently from a heart attack. There are plenty of opinions about how Michael Jackson lived his life, but there’s no turning your face away from the fact that three children just lost their 50 year old Dad.

Bottom line. There are plenty of days for being in denial about mortality. This wouldn’t be one of them.

Post from: Ed Hinerman On Life Insurance

OK, Now Suck It Up And Get Real!

A person contacted me a few months back looking for a policy to replace his current universal life which is going up in price on every anniversary date. He has been paying on the UL for about 15 years and just two years ago he received notice that the policy no longer had sufficient cash value to support the death benefit. He either needed to lower the death benefit or pay a significantly larger premium if he wanted to keep it in force.

The first time this happened he assumed it was a one time adjustment and he paid the extra premium to keep the policy in force. This year brought another large adjustment. It was now at a point where he couldn’t afford the coverage. He called me because he needed a policy at a rate he could afford, he needed that rate to be guaranteed to be level, and he had a history of prostate cancer.

We shopped the case and in spite of his Gleason grade 7 prostate cancer we were able to get a trial offer of standard from Lincoln National on a term insurance policy. The 10 year term fit well with his plans as he will be retired by then and his assets will allow him to self insure. All of the other companies offered either very highly rated policies or a decline so he indicated that he wanted to move ahead with Lincoln National. But he wasn’t quite ready. He still had a few months left on his UL that was paid for and he didn’t want to pay for double coverage. I encouraged him, in spite of the extra cost of double coverage, to take advantage of the Lincoln National offer sooner rather than later.

The next time we talked he was calling from the hospital. He had blood clots in his lungs, likely caused by a seasonal asthma that his doctor treated with prednisone. He is now on coumadin to prevent any further clotting, but Lincoln National now wants to put him off another 6 months so they can be assured that the clotting issue is under control.

So he is trapped by the universal life policy with another price increase on the way and unable to switch due to essentially being uninsurable for the next six months. I wonder what the long gone insurance agent that sold him that UL based on nothing more than assumptions would say to him today. How can an agent look someone in the face and explain what he had done to them so many years before based on the assumption that the economy would always be just peachy? The answer is they don’t. Those agents that do what his did have a way of disappearing when things turn sour.

I have encouraged the client to keep his policy in force on a monthly basis to minimize the out of pocket disaster and Lincoln has indicated that if everything is OK with the blood clots they will be willing to entertain a new application in November.

Bottom line. If you have a universal life or whole life policy that has a surprise price increase, move immediately to do something different. Almost without exception, once a policy jumps in price it will continue to do so at each opportunity the company has. And, if you have a good offer, don’t put it off until your old policy comes to another due date. Things can and will change.

Post from: Ed Hinerman On Life Insurance

Trapped By A Non Guaranteed Universal Life Policy!

If you only had a crystal ball, right? If you knew when you were going to die you could put off buying life insurance right up to the last moment, or if you knew you would outlive the need for life insurance you could just not buy at all.

Well, unless you are terminally ill or have some tried and true hooey wooey visionary way of knowing when the end might come, you are forced to deal with statistics and mortality assumptions. How many times have I heard, “The insurance company is betting I’m going to live and if I buy life insurance I’m betting that I’m going to die”?

Well, let’s be really up front and fair here. The life insurance company does believe you are going to live or they wouldn’t sell you the insurance. Duh!! But does that mean they don’t pay out on tens of thousands of claims every year that were the result of unexpected deaths? If you’re a male between age 25 and 64 the life insurance companies will be right most of the time, but 1 in 6 times they won’t be. That’s right. When you reach age 25, 1 in 6 of you won’t see age 65. If you’re female 1 in 9 of you won’t make it that far.

Let’s say for a minute that car insurance wasn’t mandated by law, completely voluntary. If you knew that the chances were randomly 1 in 6 that you would total your car I’m thinking most of you would carry comp and collision anyway.

Let’s look at it another way. That TV show about 6 degrees of separation is probably overkill in this discussion. I suspect that very few adults can say that they didn’t personally know someone between 25 and 64 who died. Most of us know someone who died prematurely and didn’t have life insurance. We just had a woman in her 40′s die in a car accident last week and a man in his 50′s have a heart attack two days ago in our small town of 6000 people. The man is still alive, but is in critical condition and without a transplant isn’t expected to make it.

A young man in his 20′s who is an ongoing subject of prayer in a men’s group I attend has inoperable cancer. It really goes on and on and I don’t make these points to get people to buy something that is going to break the bank, or even their budget. I make these points so maybe someone will understand (that doesn’t already) that we have a good chance of living to old age, but we aren’t immortal. There is prudent reason to consider having life insurance. For all of those who I have delivered death benefit checks to, saying there is prudent reason would be considered an understatement.

Bottom line. Just food for thought. If there is someone in your life who is depending on you, make sure they really can depend on you.

Post from: Ed Hinerman On Life Insurance

Mortality Risk Assessment!

Very few weeks slip by that I don’t take the opportunity to drive home the life insurance consequences of not following through with a doctor’s recommendation for a test or a follow up visit. These may seem like small things, but in the world of underwriting it is seen as being non compliant and is a sure way to get declined, or at least postponed until you break down and follow directions.

That happened to be point number 4 in an article I read today with what I thought was an amusing title, “6 Health Mistakes Smart People Make“. In their example they talk about a woman not following up on a pap smear that showed suspicious looking cells. Doctors, and you would think patients, want to rule out any chance of cervical cancer, but too often the followup testing is not done.

Whether the excuse is too busy, too expensive, or that you don’t agree with it, not completing prudent followup is dangerous to you and a death blow to any attempts to get life insurance. Whether it is going on cholesterol meds and not following up to see how it’s working or what impact the medication is having on liver functions, or someone who has had a basal cell carcinoma removed and doesn’t regularly see a dermatologist, not following through with medical advice can be a mortality risk you’ll wish you hadn’t taken.

Bottom line. All six suggestions are good, but I thought a bit strange that they would make it sound like smart people are supposed to somehow care more about their health. The truth is that doing all the right things when it comes to our well being is just not that common no matter the IQ. People don’t want to admit they have health issues and they don’t want to have to submit to a routine of checking up on themselves.

Post from: Ed Hinerman On Life Insurance

Are You Smarter Than A Smart Person?

My wife and I are off to spend the weekend with my mom in Wyoming. For the first time this spring it appears there won’t be a major winter storm in between us. Happy Mothers Day!

It is my mom’s own fight with breast cancer that has renewed my optimism for the future of how life insurance underwriters view breast cancer. Her cancer was detected about a year ago, an early detection because even at age 84 she takes advantage of self exams, doctor exams and mammograms, the tools of early detection.

It is the key, early detection, to finding the cancer at a stage where it is still ultimately beatable. Even though her cancer had spread from the tumor in her right breast to some lymph nodes under her right arm, it was all surgically removed and after chemo and radiation, all of her checkups have been good. She is probably as optimistic at 85 as I have seen her in years.

For life insurance purposes, if she was in that market at all, she would still be waiting to be 1 year out from treatment, but given the pathology of her cancer she would likely receive very fair offers at that point. Our success in helping with women with a history of breast cancer has been an exciting combination of early detection, more pin pointed treatment and fairer underwriting all coming to bear at one time.

Bottom line. Don’t let that history of breast cancer keep you from applying through a knowledgeable independent agent. This is not the underwriting world of 10 years ago just as it isn’t the diagnosis and treatment world of 10 years ago.

Post from: Ed Hinerman On Life Insurance

Breast Cancer And The Future Of Life Insurance!