I worked recently with a client who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder almost 8 years ago. After reading one of my posts on the success we’ve had in obtaining life insurance at good rates for people in her situation, she reluctantly decided to try again.

She was really a great candidate for getting the best rates. No hospitalization. No suicide attempts. A stable family life and career and she had worked hard with her doctor to find the right medication and was compliant with her treatment. Given medication, the truth is that she was someone you would never guess was facing the challenges of bipolar.

I knew that she had been declined several times in the past, but as I tell all of my clients who have been declined, that history does nothing more than tell us what companies not to go to. It wasn’t until after we got an approval and her new life insurance policy was in force that she shared with me a story that is all too common in the internet marketing world. To so many companies and websites her condition, bipolar disorder, was nothing more than a key word to draw traffic.

She related how she had searched and searched for agencies and companies that could be found by combining the words bipolar and life insurance. A few would actually talk to her and offer to run an application, but with no particular noticeable optimism about being able to get the job done. Others, and remember that these are companies and agencies who used bipolar life insurance as keywords, would simply tell her that she was uninsurable. How low is that?

I know that the internet is rather loose about rules, but it seems to me that if you are willing to draw traffic in that specific a manner, you should have some sense of how to serve those people that might respond. I found a perfect example of what she was talking about at a blog that was talking about the problems of getting life insurance when you have bipolar. It is riddled with ads, three of which address life insurance.

One is a link to AIG, American General. While they have come through as a company for me in the past, the problem with the link is that they will connect you with an agent who most likely doesn’t know anything about bipolar. In the absence of an agent that knows what they are doing, the chances of getting an approval are slim.

There is another link to Garden State Life that offers up to $150,000 with no exam. This is a dead end, because while they may not draw blood, they most assuredly will ask questions and when they discover that you and bipolar are living together, they will decline you. Garden State should be fined and tarred and feathered for advertising under the keyword bipolar.

The third link is actually embedded in the blog which makes me somewhat suspect that the blogger is actually an insurance agent or company rather than someone actually fighting the battle. It simply takes you to a page on MSN that has a list of companies under the generic search for life insurance. That search is riddled with dead end if you have bipolar.

Bottom line. The right independent agent. The right companies. The right results. Your search should be specific and you should look for a link to someone who actually sounds like they understand you as more than just a keyword.