I Feel Fine! Why Go To The Doctor?

To a guy this makes perfect sense. From my own experience I can tell you that most women, especially those married to guys that feel fine, don’t share that philosophy. Unlike us guys, they think doctors are serious about the importance of annual physicals and things like colonoscopies after age 50.

Well gentlemen, life insurance underwriters are from the same planet as our wives. Most companies, even though they do a full blood and urine analysis as part of the application process, will postpone an approval if you are over age 50 and haven’t seen a doctor in the last two years. There are a handful of companies that will hang in there and allow you to get by on your own medical advice up to age 60, and only one that I know of that will go to 65.

Let’s get real for a minute. We all (every one of us) knows someone who died too young and felt fine right up to the time they had a heart attack, or felt fine right up to the time they were diagnosed with colon cancer. Heart disease and colon cancer are a couple of good examples of the kinds of things that can be discovered early enough to save your life if you follow the standard doctor recommendations. It simply doesn’t take that much time or money to keep track of your health.

I had a potential client recently who refused to have a life insurance exam because “people find out bad things when they have exams”. So I explained guaranteed issue life insurance and that was more than she wanted to pay (yes guys, I said she). She wanted the best rate but didn’t want the insurance company to have a clue what her health was and even worse, she didn’t want to know what her health was. How stupid is that?

I’ve touched before on how underwriters feel about not following doctor’s orders. If a doctor has recommended that you have a test or a procedure and that hasn’t been done, expect your application for insurance to be postponed until you successfully define and do the word compliant. Maybe you’re not real keen on having a blood test or a colonoscopy or a digital rectal exam, but when your doctor orders it and hands you that slip to make arrangements to get it done, or simply asks you to drop your pants and bend over, it’s because he expects you will follow through. Underwriters have that same expectation.

Bottom line. The more you care about your health, the more likely you are to impress life insurance underwriters.