Allstate Life Insurance Decline Approved At Preferred Plus!

Turning a declined life insurance application into an approval is usually not that hard. It’s how I make a living. But I have to admit that turning a decline from Allstate into a preferred plus approval through one of my companies is kind of like laying down a bunt and turning it into a home run. The only way this can happen is when a company, in this case Allstate, gets so hung up on one little piece of the picture that they don’t see the need to look at the whole thing. Underwriting by the book. If the book says boo, you’re supposed to scream, run and not look back.

I have written recently about some success we’re having with life insurance clients with chronically elevated PSA (prostate specific antigen), once thought to be a sure sign that a man had prostate cancer or was on his way to developing the same. Life insurance was out of the picture until cancer could be ruled out. But PSA has come under heavy fire the last several years due primarily to too many unneeded biopsies. An elevated PSA can mean a person has prostatitis or benign prostatic hypertrophy (enlarged prostate). And doctors and now underwriters are starting to admit that some men just end up with a higher PSA than normal for no known reason.

So comes a client fresh from an Allstate slap in the face. He was definitely not in good hands. He was able to obtain a history of his PSA’s and a copy of the pathology from the one biopsy that was done. We sent off the following request for quotes, “2007 elevated psa 5 – negative biopsy did show inflamed tissue but no sign of cancer. PSA went down into 3’s early 2008. Applied for insurance with Allstate and declined due to PSA 4.2 last year . Since then PSA has fluctuated as high as 6.8 (followed 2 weeks later by a 4.8)and as low as 1.4. 12/2012 psa was 2.0 with free psa 15%. Doctor has not recommended another biopsy but they continue to monitor every few months and more frequently if it starts going up.

He need $2,000,000 of term insurance and we got several offers back, most in the standard rate range, a few that didn’t want anything to do with it in the absence of a new biopsy, and one company that said preferred plus if all of the elements of our quote request proved accurate. We applied and they did prove accurate and flying in the face of Allstate’s decline he now has a policy in force at the best rate class with a company that has far better conversion options.

Bottom line. 10 years ago no one would have touched this. 5 years ago no one would have done better than standard and there would have only been a few of those. We’re currently working a case where the proposed insured has had 3 negative biopsies and a similar PSA roller coaster. We are also very successful with prostate cancer life insurance approvals. If you have any questions or have been declined or beat up for a similar scenario, call or email me directly. My name is Ed Hinerman. Let’s talk.