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As I wrote that title it occurred to me that I might be showing my age. The advertising slogan for Prudential used to be (may still be?) “Own a piece of the rock”. Anyway, Prudential is a stand alone company when it comes to their treatment.
In an article in Cigar Aficionado a few years back they provided an overview of where cigar smokers could get the best deals. Unfortunately their source of information wasn’t horribly accurate and they wouldn’t entertain any clarification. I did post some updated information on their forum today and hopefully that will lead them to use an article to update their readers.
As recently as two years ago there were a few more companies that would entertain people who regularly smoke cigars, smoke pipes or chew tobacco, and tested positive for nicotine. The positive test is a big deal. There are actually numerous companies that allow “occasional use”, defined as anything from a cigar a week to 4 cigars a year, but if you test positive for nicotine all bets are off and you get a smoking rate.
Today Prudential stands alone as the company that will approve at non smoker rates for nicotine use other than cigarettes, even with a positive test. Any cigar smoker who is paying smoker rates through another company is paying about twice what they need to.
Bottom line. Many agents out there don’t do their homework and are just fine with you paying more than you need to. After all, more premium means more commission. Contact an independent agent today and tell them you want non smoker rates for cigar, pipe or chew use and if they don’t quote Prudential, find another agent.
July 2nd, 2008
I came across this website today Insurance Bits
The website boasts: “Insurance bits for insurance wits” - Insurance is a very hot topic these days. The more you are informed, the wiser decisions you can make. Insurance Bits brings you insurance news from around the globe. (Taken from their About page).
The problem is that they do not reference the original source, nor give credit to the author.
Blog from the Hinerman Group:
A Proud Member of AARP! No, Not Really!
As found on Insurance Bits:
A Proud Member of AARP! No, Not Really!
- Also note that the pdf link - aarp-rip-off - doesn’t work.
In fact, this site does not reference any of the rss feeds they are hoarding, such as Medical News Today and many, many others.
June 11th, 2008
Everyone believes they should get the preferred plus rates that are advertised everywhere. “Di you know that John can have $500,000 of term life insurance for just $12 per month?”. The truth is that many qualify for those rates and get them, but for the average person with average health issues, we don’t.
Probably the quickest group to rebuff anything but a best rate approval on life insurance are those folks that are overweight and know they’re overweight, but simply don’t see it as an issue. It has been my experience that this group, more than any other, seems to have a firmer grasp on denial than most. They, inspite of knowing the link between obesity and other health issues, don’t believe it is fair for them to be charged more for life insurance than someone who is fit and taking care of themselves.
Now let me be clear about this. Using a body mass index calculator I appear to fall into the overweight category at 5′10 and 175#’s. But insurance companies aren’t abusive about the build issue. With most companies, even though I am clearly in the overweight category, would actually allow another 20#’s or so before they would bump me out of the best rates as long as I didn’t have any other health issues that would preclude that.
Having said that, 5′10, 220#’s is going to catch the prize with any company. They aren’t going to care if that is the same weight that you played football at in high school. They aren’t going to care if you work out five times a week or run five miles a day. They aren’t going to care if your health is perfect in all other aspects. Obesity is obesity and along with it comes substantially increased risk of health issues that have the ability to shorten your life span and assessing your mortality risk is what life insurance underwriters do.
So, the folks whose weight (or lack of height) doesn’t get them what they want, in general, will blow off whoever is honest enough to tell them what insurance will really cost, and go on to another agent. Many are apparently so offended, in my experience, by honesty that they will never return a call again. It’s as if I called them fat or ugly or something, when all I really did was gave them an accurate quote. To them, possibly it feels as though I am just one more person in their lives who is treating them unfairly.
I don’t know what is going through their minds really, because they don’t call back to discuss it.
The truth is that the rates are fair based on build and that evenly the morbidly obese can put together a plan of life insurance that should fit into their budget. The challenge is to get over the fact that weight is an issue and it’s not going to change and work with your independent agent to find the company and the plan that will work best for you. There is not a cookie cutter interpretation of the weight issue from company to company and there are good rates to be found.
Bottom line. With obesity ranking high among the leading causes of type 2 diabetes, heart disease and cancer, underwriters can’t afford to ignore weight. Even if those health issues are currently present, you are at a greater risk than the average sized person of coming face to face with one, or more of them.
June 5th, 2008
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
I was recently contacted by a stay at home mom who was, putting it politely, a little annoyed because she was told by an insurance agent that she could only be approved for 1/2 as much life insurance as her husband was carrying.
I explained to her that, in fact, that was the stance with the majority of companies and any exception to that would have to be well thought out and presented if she expected approval. I did let her know that it was not mission impossible, but just not one of those things you can throw against the wall and assume it will stick.
A couple of points that are important to consider. This rule has been around since before mothers really had a choice of having a significant career out side the home. So it is definitely old school thinking. But just for a minute let’s revisit the old school.
I remember questioning an underwriter about this very issue in 1978. Whether or not he could back up his statement I’ll never know, but what he said was that the industry had mortality statistics that showed a higher mortality rate for stay at home moms if they had life insurance equal to or greater than their husband. He also went on to explain that the reason they limited the amount of life insurance on children was, at that time, they had statistics that showed a higher mortality rate in children with life insurance in force on their lives that was significantly higher than what was needed for final expenses.
Again, I have no idea if that was true, or if that’s just what old underwriters told young agents to get us to drop the subject. But, fast forward to today when, in most instances, being a stay at home mom is a choice and the other choice is being a second breadwinner.
So, one half of the husband’s income was based on nothing more than, I suspect, a little paranoia with some skewed statistics. Today I would propose that the amount of insurance available to a stay at home mother should be based either on the amount of income she could be making, or the replacement cost of her stay at home services.
If we were talking salary replacement for the age group that most stay at home moms would fall into, they would be eligible for enough insurance to replace about 20 times their annual income, or if you use my supposition above, 20 times their annual replacement cost. Using the $116,000 from the article that means that an acceptable amount of insurance would be over $2,000,000.
I’m not hearing a lot of women clamoring for that much insurance, but hello!!!, this is 2008 and for a woman to carry as much as a husband is really just prudent family planning. Another plus to this whole idea is that most life insurance now has an accelerated benefit rider that allows a terminally ill insured person to take up to one half of the benefit while still alive. How good would that be if the money was available for the husband to take off and take care of his dying spouse and take the burden of the children off of her. With this type of rider the balance of the death benefit is paid out at the time of death. Time for companies to rethink that rule.
Bottom line. Life insurance is all about lifting the financial burden of a loss of the back of the surviving family members. I suspect that any underwriter who still believes that the old rule applies has never talked to a widowed father with children.
May 21st, 2008
I have often suggested going to local health fairs as a prudent step for those who either can’t afford a physical with a blood workup or, like so many, can’t seem to find the time in their busy lives to sit in a doctor’s office for an hour past the appointed appointment time, only to sit in an exam room for another half hour and finally to have a doctor come in and chat for a few minutes and announce that he would like you to go the local lab where they will get blood specimens. Back to another waiting room.
Health fairs are cool. You get up on a Saturday morning and go, usually, to a local school where it appears every nurse in the county has shown up to draw blood. You don’t get the friendly chat with a doctor, but you also don’t sit and wait. My experience has always been in, do the business, and out in half an hour at the most. A few weeks later they send your results.
Below is the result of this years labs. Note that they also provide a review of your last labs done through them so you have a baseline. Yes, I know I missed a year. My wife and I were on a 10th anniversary excursion in 2007.
my-latest-labs
While they is some really great news. My PSA remains low and has actually gone down slightly. My glucose is well within normal limits so it would appear I may not be crashing in on diabetes, and I once again beat my wife on total cholesterol. I didn’t win that category by much though and her good cholesterol, HDL, was higher so her ratio was lower than mine.
The bad news came for me right at the bottom. My TSH was elevated two years ago and is significantly higher now, nearing twice the normal limit. So, what I ask is a TSH? Quoting from the handy “What the heck it that quide” sent with my results, it said “TSH (Thyroid Simulating Hormone) is the pituitary hormone that controls thyroid function…..when the thyroid gland is underproducing…..TSH increases. They actually used the word “failed”, but underproducing made me feel better while I called my doctor and asked for the first open appointment.
So, from a life insurance standpoint I am still a pretty acceptable risk. Great liver functions. Great cholesterol and gluocse. My alkaline phosphatase that was high two years ago is now normal.
Bottom line. The whole reason I beat this health fair drum is that it is an easy, inexpensive way to get a checkup that could catch something serious, early.
May 12th, 2008
My wife was telling me the other day about a man in our church who had been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes last week. He’s 40 something years old. I know that most type a diabetes onset is in early years, generally under 25, with the majority of it under age 15.
I also know that adult onset type 1 isn’t an unheard of thing. In fact I posted a blog not too long ago on type 1.5 LADA, essentially adult onset type 1 juvenile diabetes. It isn’t a take off on type 2. It is truly an insulin dependent late onset mutation. Anyway, we talked about the fact that we were able to find several reasonable life insurance offers on the case that brought 1.5 to my attention.
But where I was going with this has to do with the size of town I live in, about 6,000 people. Apparently last week our church friend was one of 10 people in our town that were diagnosed with adult onset type 1. I think, statistically speaking, that number is off the charts.
Bottom line. I hope to be able to interview the doctor (they were all seen by the same doctor) and get his take on how that could happen. Stay tuned.
May 8th, 2008
Can you stand just a little more evidence that healthy lifestyle choices do, in fact, help avoid serious health problems. Eat right and get plenty of sleep!! We’ve discussed several times how sleep, or lack of, can impact physical and mental health.
Now a large study shows that a diet that was originally concocted for people with high blood pressure has a fairly dramatic impact on the incidence of heart attacks and stroke.
This being political campaign season, I was struck with the difference between a medical study and a poll. With a political poll they might find out what a few thousand people are thinking over a few hour’s time. In this case the study involved 88,000 people followed over a 24 year period. This paragraph really didn’t have anything to do with anything other than I thought it was kind of interesting.
Anyway, a significant study for sure. The diet was no surprise emphasizing a lot of fruit and vegetables and protein sources that don’t all involve meat. The comparison was between those who followed the diet and those who ate “typical American diets”. Those on the high blood pressure diet were 24% less likely to have a heart attack and 18% less likely to have a stroke.
While life insurance can be attained in most cases following a heart attack or stroke, there is no doubt that, compared with the price of someone who hasn’t had one of those occurrences, there is a high likelihood of sticker shock.
Bottom line. Lifestyle choices happen every day and what we do with those very often determines how many days we get. We not only get to live longer, but we get to pay less for life insurance while we are here.
April 16th, 2008
Often when a person gets into their 70’s, life insurance choices have to be studied more carefully. In most cases there is only one term option left, the 10 year term insurance. If that doesn’t work for you, the only other practical option is a universal life with a no lapse guarantee, a cashless permanent policy.
I was reading an article about our ever changing mortality statistics. We’ve come a long way since the day when making it into your late 70’s was considered a ripe old age. Newer studies show that if you are still healthy at 65, making it to 85 or 90 is a pretty good bet.
So, back to the choice of 10 year term. This article cited the Tillinghast Older Age Mortality Study. The conclusion it came to should put a huge asterik of concern next to any 10 year term quote for someone over 70. The primary conclusion for owners of 10 year term policies was that “mortality experience through years 11-15 was 215% of mortality in years 6-10.
This is OK if you truly planned and knew that the need for the insurance was taken care of by the end of the 10 years, but if you bought it because it was cheaper, you likely made a mistake.
Bottom line. Consider carefully when you get to your 70’s just exactly what the best direction is. Don’t bust your budget, but one thing you may want to weigh is whether having $250,000 of 10 year term is better than say, $150,000 of permanent insurance. You are weighing less benefit against the risk of outliving all of the benefit.
March 8th, 2008
You may have seen it advertised in magazines and on television. $1,000,000 accidental death travel insurance. It’s quick and easy and it is a guaranteed issue product. It’s very affordable.
It’s not the answer for all of those who are taking jobs in war zones as “acts of war” is one of the few exclusions. It does cover acts of terrorism though which makes it an attractive product for those who may have to travel to areas where car bombings and suicide bombings are not uncommon.
It is only in force when you are traveling, so you really need to have life insurance in force for when you’re at home.
This product fills a niche that has long been owned by Lloyds of London and makes a product available that is much more affordable than Lloyds. While Lloyds will still be the go to company for the crazy risks, having your worldwide travel covered with an additional $1,000,000 of accidental death will put a lot more business people at ease.
Bottom line. I always recommend a person have adequate life insurance before worrying about accidental death insurance, but there are times when the extra coverage is prudent and a reasonable thing to do.
March 4th, 2008
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