The cruxt of bipolar disorder is simply highs and lows. One day you’re up, sometimes very up and the next you might be down, sometimes very down.

This is, from a simplistic view, a good description of a lot of life insurance underwriters. They will get all fired up and getting everyone excited to jump on board with their latest idea and then they will go south and you’re left wondering if it was a mirage.

These are the same group, in many cases, who are so viciously against fair underwriting for bipolar disorder. Kind of ironic.

The good news is that there are some stable, solid underwriters out there who aren’t bouncing back and forth so fast that you never know what to tell a client. At the head of that class, I would put Prudential. They have been around for the last 10,000 years or so and have been producing consistent, no nonsense, fair underwriting for at least the last 100 of those. They look seriously at clients with bipolar, as long as they are stable and compliant with their treatment. They understand the huge difference between controlled and uncontrolled bipolar and they know a good risk when they see one.

Bottom line. Are life insurance underwriters really bipolar? Well, probably some are, but that doesn’t explain the erratic decisions that come from so many companies. What’s really going on is that, when faced with a risk they don’t know how to assess, they bury their head in the sand and all you hear is a muffled decline. Fair rates are out there. If you have bipolar and are historically stable, don’t give up.