I know I’ve beat this drum before, but there is a real propensity in the life insurance business for agents to be so protective of a potential sale that they will actually tell a customer they are uninsurable, rather than admit they are the wrong agent for the job. They have a skewed view of their job. They think it is their job to sell only the products offered by their company. If a client doesn’t fit their company then they believe their job is done.

There isn’t a week that goes by without hearing from people who are desperate to find affordable life insurance. They have been told they are uninsurable because they had a heart attack. They’ve been told they will never get insurance because they’ve had breast cancer or because they have diabetes. I’ve had clients who are never called back by another agent because they admit they have been through alcohol treatment.

Agents actually tell these people “you will never get life insurance”. I wish I could be put in touch with every one of these clients, but in the whole scheme of things I get to talk to only a handful of them. I can only imagine how many just give up and leave their family without protection because some lame excuse for a life insurance agent didn’t have the guts to just tell their client to seek out a more experienced independent agent. Or better yet, do the legwork for their client and find them the right agent who represents a company that can do the job.

If you talk to an agent and they declare you uninsurable without running your information informally through several underwriters, they are either captive or incompetent. If they say they’ve shopped it and you are simply uninsurable and they don’t talk to you about what has to happen to reach insurability, they are captive or incompetent.

Bottom line. Agents very often declare you uninsurable because they aren’t knowledgeable in your impairment or are too lazy to work an impaired risk case. No one said it’s easy. Never, never take uninsurable as an answer without doing an internet search for an agent with the expertise you need.