So we’re all familiar with the manic and depressive swings that are the hall mark of bipolar disorder. Some are subtle and manifest as people that work like crazy and then need down time to recover. The more severe bipolar manifestations are manic on the out of control side and depressive on the low end of the scale. I’ve talked about life insurance underwriting of bipolar disorder in this forum for years and for the most part have been the bearer of good news, mostly the uncovering of life insurance approvals for bipolar that clients would have sworn never could have happened.
Even more amazing is the number of life insurance agents who wouldn’t have wasted their time even searching for possible approvals for someone with bipolar. By far the vast majority of agents, along with all the clients who had been declined, would have sworn that approvals don’t exist in this universe. So what’s my take on the mood swings of life insurance underwriting in the bipolar disorder arena? For those who have followed this forum for long you may remember that getting our first bipolar case approved was one of those “oh my gosh” times. Who knows where these analogies come from, but it was a bit like a starving person walking up to a dumpster, knowing that nothing good has ever come out that dumpster. Already preparing their gag reflex for what was about to come they open the lid and right on top was a to go box with a complete meal, still hot and completely wonderful. It gave me hope that where everyone I had learned from had told me nothing but dead ends existed, there was good news. People were getting approved in the standard to standard table 4 range, way better than a decline.
Try writing a serious blog and recovering from your own self inflicted analogy!! Things kept getting better. We started conversing with underwriters to find the sweet spot where bipolar disorder went from scary to pretty normal. When we got there we started getting approvals at unprecedented (MANIC) preferred and preferred plus life insurance rates, albeit for those CEO’s and professionals who would have to convince you there was anything out of the norm with them, but nevertheless approvals for people being treated for bipolar disorder. That started softening a bit a few years ago and standard and standard plus life insurance approvals (MOOD SWING) were the best we could squeeze, even for the best, well controlled, almost invisible bipolarness. Having noted that shift, keep in mind that before we started getting approvals bipolar disorder was an almost sure decline with almost everyone. So standard and standard plus, while higher than the peak, was still awesome.
Bottom line. Things have continued to shift and today a well controlled, run of the mill, fully functional, working bipolar life insurance client is back where we started at standard to (DEPRESSIVE) table 4 rates. I hate to characterize any approval as depressive because, again, compared to a life insurance decline table 4 is a home run and standard is an in the bases loaded home run. If you have questions or believe you are in the sweet spot of bipolar life insurance underwriting but have been abused, call or email me directly. My name is Ed Hinerman. Let’s talk.
My 20 years of experience give me the knowledge and leverage to find reasonably-priced life insurance for people who have been declined or are paying more than they need to.
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