Life insurance exam questions

Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 03:21 pm Post Subject:

What information are you looking for?

Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 08:11 pm Post Subject: Let this company help you with your inquiries

dgoldenz edit - I am just going to keep removing all of your links, so you might as well stop trying to spam.

Posted: Wed Mar 17, 2010 02:35 am Post Subject:

Haaa @bestrates and dgoldenz

To the original question, that all depends on type and amount of insurance for which you are applying.

Carriers are also different with respect to what kind of information they wish to collect from an applicant. Your best bet is to talk to an agent, or broker--you're going to have to at some point if you are planning on buying insurance. They will be able to tell you what the underwriting procedure looks like.

Posted: Wed Mar 17, 2010 06:07 am Post Subject:

See, the purpose of these tests is to determine your life expectancy. If you'd live longer your premium payments would continue for a longer period of time. The insurer would like to collect more in terms of your premiums in case your life expectancy is less.

Posted: Thu Mar 18, 2010 09:57 am Post Subject:

Life insurers would certainly check on the mortality rates depicted in the Longevity charts. They'd get an idea of how many people belonging to a particular age group die every year. The mortality rates determine their risks as insurance carriers.

Posted: Fri Mar 19, 2010 05:57 am Post Subject:

Usually, they would ask you about the medical history of your family and your personal habits e.g. smoking, drinking etc. In addition, they might simply wish to have the contact information of your doctor.

Posted: Thu Mar 25, 2010 05:14 pm Post Subject:

Boy! All this dancing and no one seems to be answering the OP's question.

Each carrier has filed its underwriting guidelines with the state insurance regulator. When you apply for life insurance, the insurance company applies those guidelines to your application and you are run through the underwriting process.

Depending on (1) age, (2) amount of insurance applied for, and (3) disclosed or discovered medical history, the insurer may require various tests or other information.

This can include blood/saliva testing for HIV/AIDS, blood testing for cholesterol, liver enzymes, diabetes, other identifiable maladies or tobacco/drug use, urine testing for the same and other purposes, attending physician statement (APS), consumer report (credit check), consumer investigative report (credit check + criminal background/lifestyle inquiry), EKG, treadmill test, paramed or physician exam. Anything else it requires to determine eligibility for coverage.

Checking "mortality tables" ("longevity charts" as one poster incorrectly states) is not truly an underwriting concern. Mortality tables identify basic life expectancy are are used to set life insurance rates based on age alone. This is the work of the actuarial department, not the work of the underwriting department.

Underwriters may accept a risk, but on a less than standard basis ("substandard") and penalize the applicant for their perceived shorter life expectancy by charging a higher rate for the insurance. Sometimes they do this by "rating up in age" -- you are age 40, but your medical testing has you looking very much like a person age 50, so the underwriter offers a policy at the age 50 rate, rather than the age 40 rate as applied for. That would effectively double the cost of insurance (or more). They could assign a rating of "Table IV" which does the same thing (4 x +25% = standard rate + 100%).

Different companies underwrite according to different guidelines. Some are "looser" than others (but also tend to be more expensive). Specific underwriting challenges can be directed to companies known to underwrite according to more liberal guidelines to improve one's chance of being approved.