Is Your Dangerous Hobby Covered By Life Insurance?

Let’s start with the good news. If you have life insurance in force and you took up your hazardous activity after putting that life insurance policy in force, and didn’t apply for the insurance because you were anticipating taking up the dangerous hobby, well, you’re covered.

A scare tactic sales technique that less than scrupulous agents often use is to just leaving a nagging doubt about in force policies covering some new found good time like skydiving or scuba diving. If they can massage your doubt enough they can make a new sale. If you are told that an in force policy doesn’t cover a new passion, get a second opinion directly from the company.

Now, if you are like a lot of married guys you might come up with an idea of something you would like to do and either you don’t have life insurance or your wife suddenly rethinks how much you should have. Amazing the way they flash their never before seen financial planning degree when you decide to become a private pilot or take up skydiving. But the truth is that a little perceived risk is usually a good thing for couples. Many are under insured until then. So, the first job is to reconsider how much life insurance is needed.

If you have adequate life insurance in force, but you’re concerned whether it covers your new hobby, call the company customer service line and understand before you call that if you took the insurance out at a time when, let’s say, you had no plans to take up private aviation, there should be question that you are fully covered for aviation, even if your policy is fairly new and still within the two year contestability period. There will be some questions if you ask the question the week after your policy goes in force and understandably so, but if you can honestly say that at the time the policy was put in force you had no plans to take up flying, then you’re covered. So for SCUBA life insurance, sky diving, mountain climbing or other high-risk life insurance needs, what is important is what you were or were not planning at the time you get life insurance.

Things like that happen all the time and insurance companies aren’t going to go through a legal battle to try to get out of the claim. Will they investigate to see that there was in fact no plan to fly? You bet they will. If they can’t find any evidence to the contrary they’re going to pay and they won’t drag out the investigation because the insurance company pays the death benefit plus interest from the time of death. They want to wrap it up quickly.

Things like aviation, rock climbing and foreign travel are pretty easy to handle with traditional life insurance, but when the death benefit increase is directly tied to the hobby, it is easier to handle with accidental death insurance. If it’s a temporary thing like a one time chance to climb Mt Everest or go grizzly bear hunting, if it’s not already covered by your life insurance, it’s simple to get an AD&D policy for a short period of time.

Bottom line. Is your current dangerous hobby or a new dangerous hobby covered by your life insurance? If you’re not sure and don’t want to call the company, call me. I’ve saved a lot of people from buying life insurance they didn’t need to and when they do need to I can get the best possible products and rates for your situation.