Would You Want Your Parent Treated Like This?

In a post last week I brought up the new cognitive testing that a few companies are going to for elderly (post 70) life insurance applicants. This is worthy of some discussion and review.

Just to refresh, with American General (AIG), if you are over 70 and apply for life insurance you now have to perform certain tests along with the normal life insurance exam. They offer a “Gait test” to see if you can walk around. They offer a “Chair stand test” to see if you can get up and down out of your chair.  They then conclude with a “cognitive” test to see if your memory is up to their standards. Asking things like what town you are in and who the president is. Wasting 15 or more minutes of your time having you use words in sentences and then seeing how many of the words you can recall. I feel bad for the examiners that are being asked to do this.

I can tell you that I will do everything I can to make sure none of my clients are subjected to this again. One already has been and he was furious. He found it just as offensive as you might think and to make matters worse, the insurance company mis-figured his age and had an examiner do the test to a 61 year old.

The new cognitive testing is wrong.

Bottom line. Would you want your parents treated this way? If you are over 70, would you want to be subjected to this testing, knowing that younger people are not?

This post is somewhat dated. Life insurance underwriting is changing and evolving continually. For more updated information check out some of the key word links. If you have a specific question or topic you need information for do a search. If you don’t find the answers you need contact me and we’ll make sure you get the information that is important to you.