Owner: Ed Hinerman on Life Insurance URL:www.hinermangroup.com/blog Join Date: Mon, 14 May 2007 12:25:32 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: Everything you didn't know about life insurance. Site statistics:Click here
Get a financial planner and live forever!!! 2007-06-14 19:31:31 Somewhere in the education system for financial planner
s, the curriculum missed one little detail. People die unexpectedly! Estate planning attorney’s missed that class also.
For all the good that can come from the advice of either profession, none of the advice works if they take months, or years to finally come up with the perfect plan…..and their client is dead or has been rendered uninsurable due to cancer or heart disease. I’ve seen it happen more often than it ought to and I hope the family has the presence of mind and the resources to sue the pants off of the poorly advised advisor.
Whether an estate attorney or financial planner, the first thing they should advise if a person doesn’t have life insurance in force, is to get some. Buy term insurance. Keep it cheap and easy to walk away from, but don’t go into a planning process that always takes longer than it should, uninsured.
Not long ago I had a client who kept waiting, against my advice, for a
Life insurance in the fast lane!!! 2007-06-19 18:41:59 I am often asked why I need to know someone’s driver’s license number when they are applying for life insurance
. “What’s that got to do with it”?
Life insurance companies have found a glance at a motor vehicle report to be helpful in evaluating a person’s lifestyle. Multiple moving violations or perhaps an unadmitted DUI might just point toward a risk factor that might need a closer look.
Most insurance companies aren’t going to go bonkers if you have a couple of tickets that are just marginally over the speed limit, but if they run your MVR and find that, for instance, you have 3 or 4 speeding tickets in the last couple of years, that might raise some eyebrows and rates. The bad news for you folks that drive too fast on a consistent basis is that you will likely pay more for your life insurance for now. The good news is that, just like your auto insurance, the further you get from that last ticket, the better your chances of securing even the
Life after snoring?? 2007-06-27 18:26:16 Most sleep apnea is diagnosed first by the person sleeping next to the apneatic. While on a trip to Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina I got to experience firsthand the room shaking impact of sleep apnea. Having some knowledge of the problem and knowing that I could well experience this 50-100 times that night, I found another room in the church we were housed in to call my home.
According to the American Sleep Apnea Assocication, “Sleep apnea is very common, as common as adult diabetes, and affects more than twelve million Americans, according to the National Institutes of Health. Risk factors include being male, overweight, and over the age of forty, but sleep apnea can strike anyone at any age, even children.”
I knew that sleep apnea from a life insurance underwriting standpoint can be problematic, depending on the company it was underwritten through. Some companies will charge abusively high rates if the issue is even mentioned. Other more discerning companies at least
DO NOT shop til you drop!! 2007-06-25 18:34:14 Another overly diligent life insurance shopper shot themselves in the foot today. Remember, three things can happen while you are looking for the best possible rate. One of them is good and I’ve seen people even turn that one against themselves.
1. The good one. Nothing happens. You just keep shopping and shopping and shopping and you finally settle on the one you want and you apply for it. You’re still in great health and you’re obviously not dead, so you’ve done your job. Well……sometimes. You see, most people who haven’t been around life insurance much think they are good to shop or good to wait until they buy until their birthday. Everyone knows that life insurance goes up with age, right? No! Most companies use the age nearest method to compute your insurance age. So, if you are 49 and 183/365th’s, you are really 50 with most insurance companies. I’ve seen plenty of diligent shoppers have to make their purchase at an age o
You mean it is going to cost more because I smoke???? 2007-06-29 16:52:55 I really think they are probably faking the shock and amazement when they find out they don’t get those life insurance rates advertised everywhere, because those are non smoking rates and they smoke. Surely they’ve slipped up at least once and read the old warning on the pack that says smoking has NOT been linked to great health and longevity.
Even the most even handed companies will charge twice as much for a preferred smoking rate as they will for a preferred non smoker. Some are three times more and I’ve seen some companies with smoking rates four times higher. I’m thinking the underwriters at those last two sets of companies may have read somewhere that there are statistical links between smoking and cancer, smoking and heart disease, smoking and stroke and just to make the point clear, smoking and etc, etc, etc, etc………..
What I find amazing is that some life insurance companies will allow a person who has smoked for 20 or 30 years, quit
Equitable Life learns how to play Pacman!!!!!! 2007-07-02 18:56:57 This, for me, just falls into the “go figure” category. Two of the best companies from a product and underwriting stance, MONY and US Financial, were purchased within the last year by AXA Equitable. For a while nothing changed and then snap (my imitation of Pacman), MONY is gone. And now snap again. By mid July US Financial will no longer exist.
US Financial was the innovative “clinical underwriting” company that shook everything up by announcing to the world that clients should be underwritten based on their own merit and not just thrown into the same bucket as say, every other person who has had a heart attack or every other person who had type 1 diabetes or type 2 diabetes. Thye were the company that made compliance and control the issue rather than the disease. They were the company that rewarded people for doing the right things. Well, the AXA has fallen on that kind of logical thinking and underwriting.
AXA Equitable. The 800 pound gorilla smashes another
Private pilots abandoned, the adopted!! 2007-07-02 07:36:31 Life insurance giant AIG, American General led the way for years in offering the best deals for private pilots looking for life insurance. They took over the market and dominated for several years……and then they bailed. From my perspective it looked like they had a few claims, some of them worth several million, that they feared was going to somehow collapse their $700 billion dollar empire. They pushed the idea that they were there for pilots and then ran from it at the first sign of checks going the wrong direction for them.
There are other companies that were there before AIG and are still there. Pilots can still find dependable, affordable life insurance through North American, Genworth Life and Annuity and ING Reliastar. It’s not really like these companies stepped in and adopted private pilots. It’s more like when AIG was flaunting low rates, pilots and some agents may have forgotten those companies that had been there for them all along.
There is noth Read more:Private
Cancer hits home again! 2007-07-05 19:00:42 You ever wonder why life insurance companies are so tentative, so cautious when underwriting cancer cases? Ever wonder why doctors are so cautious about offering a prognosis on cancer? With as much research and study that has gone into cancer and treatment you would think they, insurance companies and doctors, could be fairly definitive about what to expect. Sadly, not the case.
Cancer
is insidiously unpredictable. Just when you think it’s whipped, it pops up again or in another place. Sometimes it lays dormant for years and make a sudden comeback. Sometimes the treatment is so agressive that your immune system takes a beating that it can’t recover from and something other than cancer becomes the new enemy.
I got bad news and good news today from my dad. He has been battling bladder cancer for months and it now has spread to several other areas of his body. He’s starting chemo next week, again.
But my dad doesn’t let things get him down. He finds something good
Pru rocks on sleep apnea!! 2007-07-12 17:45:28 The industry norm for underwriting sleep apnea has been the same for years until the Rock rocked the boat.
Mild to moderate sleep apnea has historically been underwritten at a standard or possibly a standard plus rate depending on compliance with cpap use and a sleep study showing controlled apnea when using the cpap. Out of the blue, Prudential has stepped up and said that they will offer their best rate class, one of the best rates available in the industry, for sleep apnea in the mild to moderate categories as long as compliance is good and all other risk factors fall within their best rate class underwriting guidelines.
This is huge. It could potentially cut in half the premium payments for those that qualify. For those currently paying the higher rates, it can mean more money in their pocket, or more insurance and longer terms without higher cost.
Remember now - ALL OTHER RISK FACTORS IN THE BEST RATE CLASS MUST BE MET. Some of the things that might keep you from improving with th
So what’s the big deal with atrial fib? 2007-07-11 19:18:38 According to the American Heart Association, about 2.2 million Americans have atrial fibrillation, a form of arrythmia to some degree. It seems like this year about half of them have inquired about life insurance through our office. Like most health issues, life insurance underwriters want to know if someone with atrial fib has the condition well controlled, is compliant with their cardiologist’s recommendations, and cares enough to educate themselves about their situation.
I can tell you that the last thing, education, does not seem to be a high priority amongst those atrial fibbers I’ve talked to. There are those that truly understand what atrial fibrillation is and what the cost of not controlling it is. They are the minority.
So what is it that concerns life insurance underwriters about atrial fibrillation? What’s the big deal with a bit of irregular heart beat?
First, what is it? The AHA defines atrial fibrillation as “the heart’s two small upper cham
Does your doctor cut and paste?? 2007-07-10 19:54:44 If you’re looking for a fascinating read, try your own medical records sometime. It runs the gammut from comedy to mystery and there’s even parts of it that might fall into the non fiction class. Be prepared though. What you think you’ll find when you dive off into this weekend classic may not be anything you expected.
I get plenty of chances to review parts of medical records for clients as we try to figure out why a life insurance underwriter has abused them over something they don’t seem to have a lot of knowledge about. It usually comes after the standard rate increase explanation, “due to information in the proposed insured’s medical records. ”
I always get a kick out of a couple of things. Whenever your doctor has you see another doctor, a specialist or something, that doctor will write a letter summarizing the visit to go in your regular doc’s medical records. It always starts out with a pleasantry like “Thank you very much f Read more:paste
6 ways to ensure that you are declined for life insurance!! 2007-07-13 16:13:02 1. Lie to the agent about a significant health issue! Life insurance
companies are going to obtain your medical records and when they find out they’ve been lied to, they don’t want your business.
2. Don’t do what your doctor recommends! Your application will be automatically declined if you have not completed a test or procedure that your doctor recommends. Occasionally they will just postpone the application until you complete what you were asked to do.
3. Don’t comply with doctor ordered treatment! If your doctor prescribes medication and you decide you don’t want to take it anymore, make sure your doctor concurs or is at least aware of it. If meds are prescribed in your medical records and you aren’t taking them, you are declined.
4. Don’t see a doctor at all! Most companies will not accept an application on someone over 50 who has not seen a doctor in the last two years.
5. Cross out something on the application! Occasionally someone will d Read more:ensure
, life insurance
Why universal life insurance? What about whole life? 2007-07-17 19:40:54 Here’s where you can get a whole helping of my opinion that has grown and matured and reformed and settled since I sold my first whole life life policies in 1978.
Both whole life and universal life are meant to be permanent insurance
. They are meant to be there until you die because they are covering a need that never goes away. A very simple example of a need that never goes away is burial insurance. It is almost always a whole life policy and should absolutely be guaranteed to be there when it is needed.
A larger example of the need for permanent insurance is an estate preservation policy, a policy designed to provide the money to pay estate taxes. That need is there until the death of the owner of the estate. In the case of a married couple the ownership passes to the surviving spouse when the first one dies. When the surviving spouse dies, taxes come due. This is generally covered by either a whole life or universal life second to die policy. In the absence of insurance, most Read more:life insurance
Why term life insurance? What to think about! 2007-07-17 19:14:31 Probably the most often asked question in life insurance
. What is the difference between term and whole life? I will deal with whole life and universal life at another time, but let’s talk about term and what it’s really made to do.
Term life insurance
provides a policy with a level death benefit and a level premium (payment) for a guaranteed length of time. The most common term lengths are 10 years, 15 years, 20 years and 30 years. Once you come to the end of that guaranteed period, the price is going to go up dramatically, so it is not a product that is designed to have in force longer than the guaranteed term.
While there are those that would argue that “they are just betting against themselves” when they buy term, they are just kind of missing the target of what the product is made for. If a person wants a policy to be there absolutely until they die, then whole life or universal is the answer. Another blog will cover that.
Term insurance is the right choice Read more:think
Why would you want a life insurance agent? 2007-07-17 10:21:55 The thought of a life insurance
agent, for many, conjures up a picture of someone showing up at the house and sitting in the living room with you and very often using a flip chart type of graphic to drive home the point about why you need exactly what he came there to sell.
Ahh, the home town agent! It holds a special place in my heart since that is exactly how I started in the business back in 1978. At the time I worked for Mutual of Omaha and believed that the company and what they had to offer was certainly as good as it got. I really didn’t know any better. Being a captive agent the company kind of inundates you with propaganda about themselves.
Fast forward nearly 30 years and life insurance
can actually be had without ever talking to anyone. Just go on line, fill in some information and give a credit card and within a week or so a policy shows up. You paid too much for it, but boy was it easy.
You can also try some of the life insurance mega stores on line. Selectquote, Acc
Heart disease and life insurance 101! 2007-07-16 17:11:33 The average person who purports to be a life insurance
agent will a rather adverse reaction if you tell them you want life insurance and openly admit that you have heart disease
. It doesn’t matter if you have just had minor blockage that was treated medically, an angioplasty or heart bypass, or have suffered a heart attack, 98% of life insurance agents will either tell you your situation is not insurable or will tell you they will get back to you, and never do.
And, they will take one of these courses of action without gathering any further information. If you tell an agent that you have had some heart issue and they don’t ask a lot more questions, find another agent. There are four primary things underwriters look at when analyzing a cardiac case. Your agent should ask about these things, and you should know the answers.
1. Date of onset or diagnosis! Heart
disease is a more natural occurrence the older you are. If you started having heart issues in your 30’s or 40&r
Life insurance for prostate cancer survivors 101! 2007-07-16 16:43:32 The very thought of trying to find life insurance
for someone who has had prostate cancer would send 98% of life insurance agents screaming into the dark. Most would just tell you, without asking any questions, that you are uninsurable.
About 80% of prostate cancer cases are not only insurable, but insurable at rates that someone with no cancer history would be happy with. If you want to win the prize there are three things that your agent should ask for and you need to be able to provide. If the agent doesn’t ask for these things, get another agent.
1. You need to know what the doctor found when you were diagnosed! Their first indication was probably an elevated PSA ( prostate specific antigen). You need to know what that was at the time of diagnosis. From there they would have done a biopsy. From the biopsy they would have determined a stage and grade of the cancer. The stage would be somewhere between A-D. It could be like A2. The grade, also known as the Gleason score would
Life insurance for diabetics 101 2007-07-16 16:13:53 If you have type 1 diabetes or type 2 diabetes and have shopped for life insurance
, you more than likely ran into a few stumbling blocks, a few roadblocks and some outright dead ends. The real problem is that you probably ran into an agent who didn’t understand what to ask and where to go with that information.
Life insurance underwriters look for 3 primary things when evaluating life insurance in relation to diabetes. The more accurate the information you can provide, the more likely that you will get the quotes and approval that you want.
1. Know the status of your diabetes! Know the labwork numbers. Everyone can remember their last glucose reading from their own test. If you want to seriously shop for good rates on your life insurance you need to know your most recent hbA1c. Underwriters aren’t impressed if your last glucose reading was 105. They are impressed if your hbA1c is 5.8. Why? The A1c averages your glucose levels over a 3 months period. It knows when you’
Breast cancer and life insurance 101! 2007-07-20 08:46:01 While the word cancer mostly causes distress to the average life insurance
agent, many independent agents are well educated and connected to help survivors of breast cancer and many other types of cancer find affordable life insurance.
The key for you as a consumer and for the agent you choose, is knowledge of the specifics of the cancer. Through all the trauma of diagnosis and treatment, many types the small details are not remembered. It is these details that can help you to once again beat the odds and end up with good insurance rates.
With breast cancer the most important underwriting information, which also is the information needed to get initial insurance quotes that you can count on, is the stage and grade of the cancer, the treatment specifics and a post treatment pathology report. Armed with this information a good independent life insurance agent has the best possible chance of obtaining agressive (low) quotes and ultimately an approved policy that is the same as the quotes Read more:Breast
Have your cigar and eat it too!! 2007-07-19 19:30:13 My grandfather used to do that. He would smoke them and chew them and spit and……well, he had a nicotine habit. Use of nicotine with life insurance companies is a pretty clear cut issue. If you use it, you are in the same rate class as a cigar
ette smoker. There are a few exceptions to that rule.
Some companies will allow an “occasional cigar” and not punish you. They might define that as not more than 4 a year, some might say no more than 1 a month. One company stands out on this issue as the only company that will allow cigar smoking at non smoking rates with no requirement for occasional use or lack of nicotine in your labs.
Just to give you an idea what that might mean in rates, if you got the best possible smoking rate on a 54 year old male for $500,000 of 20 year term insurance, you would pay $4055.00 annually. If you have an independent agent who knows where to take your cigar habit you could pay $2285.00 annually for the same policy.
This also happens to
Are you smart enough to qualify for life insurance? 2007-07-19 11:36:49 Some life insurance
companies, Transamerica and American General to name a few, have stepped off into an area of underwriting that is borderline (or maybe not so borderline) offensive to the people that are subject to the new guidelines. I suspect someone in the near future will test it’s legality.
They have decided that folks over 70 needed to be evaluated beyond the normal health, family history and lifestyle guidelines that say a 45 year old or even a 65 year old would need to be. The first to hit the streets with the new cognitive tests was Transamerica. Along with the normal exam, the examiner now gets to insult the applicant by asking them a lot of the same questions that are asked at an accident scene when someone has suffered a head injury. Things like what day of the week it is, what town you are in and who the President is? They go further and ask you to use a list of words in sentences and then later they test you by asking you to recall as many of the words as possibl Read more:life insurance
To cash value or not to cash value!! 2007-07-19 08:17:20 If you are a Northwestern Mutual agent you are bred to believe that life insurance without cash value is, by it’s very nature, evil. Northwestern Mutual has term life insurance products, but they are priced so outrageously high as to lead the casual observer to the conclusion that they would be foolish to buy term when they can get whole life and it’s cash value at only slightly higher rates.
Whole life is all about the cash value. Variable universal life is all about the cash value. Some agents sell straight universal life based on it’s ability to build cash value. Why does your life insurance policy need cash value? Bottom line, it doesn’t.
Cash value accumulation in a whole life policy is sold on the premise that you can borrow against it down the road. Cash value in a variable universal life policy is sold on the premise that you can retire on it down the road. The problem with down the road is that in most cases it is not guaranteed. You may or may not bui
Is your universal life guaranteed? 2007-07-18 19:11:48 Every universal life policy sold, is sold as a permanent product. I don’t think there is anything left to the imagination when the word permanent is used. It should never go away.
I can assure you that no agents sell universal life policies and tell you that the premium will be this much for so long and then it may go up a little, or maybe a bunch, and at some point it could very well become unaffordable.
So, a good working definition for a permanent policy if you are a consumer is, “a policy that is guaranteed to always be there and the cost is guaranteed to stay the same”. Sounds like a reasonable goal and a good product. And that is exactly what you should insist on when purchasing a universal life policy.
Unfortunately for consumers and for the industry’s reputation, agents very often try to make things cheaper to win the sale and in doing so they lean on the appearance of a policy that will do what you want, but it isn’t guaranteed. Why would an age
The cost of staggering life insurance!! 2007-07-18 18:46:59 While there are plenty of you out there who paid too much for your life insurance
and believe I meant to say “the staggering cost of life insurance”, I meant what I said and I would like to again discuss the idea of staggering or layering your term life insurance.
There are throngs of unimaginative life insurance agents out there who are so anxious to make a sale that, rather than throw out a few wrinkles for the customer to think about, they recommend all your eggs go in one basket. The sale will go much quicker and smoother if they can keep a client from thinking outside the box. The problem is that it is rare that all needs fit neatly into one term length.
Let me just bounce this off of you and please, feel free to point out if I’m crazy. Let’s say you are 45 years old and you have determined that you currently need $750,000 of life insurance. You have a 15 year old child. You are loving what you do for a living and currently anticipate working until age 65,
Term life insurance as a retirement supplement! 2007-07-18 12:51:44 Many companies and institutions offer retirement
options that are based on how much you want guaranteed during your lifetime and how much you want to continue on to your spouse. Given good health and the proper use of life insurance
, you can often have your cake and eat it too.
The scenario usually goes something like this. You retire from XYZ Corp and the maximum retirement income you can collect is $7000 per month. Option 1 would give you the full amount until you die. After your death none of the income would continue to your surviving spouse. Option 2 might provide you $5000 per month until you die and at that time your surviving spouse would receive half of the income, $2500 per month, for the rest of her life. Option 3 would provide $4000 per month while you are living and the full $4000 would continue on to your spouse upon your death.
Using life insurance can allow you to take more of the benefit now and upon your death, the life insurance would provide an income that would rep
Is life insurance biblical? 2007-07-22 11:20:16 A friend asked recently if there was any biblical precedence for life insurance
. His assertion was that if God takes care of his people, why carry life insurance
.
I would just offer this from 1 Timothy 5:8, “If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”
I have offered the opinion in previous blogs that men often think of themselves, and especially their egos and their money, ahead of their own wife and children. In Proverbs 15:27 it says “A greedy man brings trouble to his family”.
Bottom line. It is God’s plan that a husband and father should ensure that his family is taken care of, and I don’t think I would be stretching that same thought to include that a single parent, man or woman, should ensure that their children are taken care of. Please join me in sharing bible verse that supports this idea.
That insurance guy!!!! 2007-07-21 17:08:23 I always laugh a little when I call a fairly new potential customer and someone else answers. When I asked to speak to the customer they will often turn and say, “it’s that insurance
guy.”
I can tell you that when a life insurance agent does most of their business over the phone, until the customer knows you and knows your telephone number (thanks to caller id), we are stuck somewhere between that insurance guy and just another telemarketer. You need to know that I have never called on anyone that did not solicit a life insurance quote and provide their phone number. I am also somewhat amused that people are occasionally miffed when you call about their inquiry, when they made the inquiry and they supplied their phone number.
Fortunately, once professionalism and expertise is shown and trust is built, an agent can actually be elevated to friend, advisor, even financial professional.
Bottom line. “That insurance guy” is an OK place to start. I love this bus
Alcohol consumption and life insurance! 2007-07-21 16:53:54 Clients are always surprised that their alcohol use can be an underwriting issue. Whether a person has been through alcohol treatment, has had a DUI, or just consumes higher than average amounts of alcohol, they present an underwriting challenge on more than one level.
Alcohol
abuse carries with it both health and lifestyle issues that, without a doubt, have a mortality risk appropriately attached. When a life insurance
underwriter is considering someone who has abused alcohol extensively enough to require treatment, they have to weigh the health issues such as liver damage and the life style issues such as alcohol induced depression and suicide, as well as the tendency toward DUI and the associated dangers inherent to that.
Heavy drinkers are often surprised when they are declined without ever having had a DUI, ever having been through treatment, or for that matter, ever admitting to the agent or the company that they even drink. What they didn’t expect was that, in general, if
Skin cancer and life insurance 101! 2007-07-21 16:22:36 Skin cancer is probably one of the most common forms of cancer, especially here in the sunny southwest and growing up in the Rocky mountains as I did with very little between us and the sun’s uv rays. Sunscreen didn’t show up on the scene until I was in my 20’s and with sun being the cause of more than 90% of skin cancer, that puts many who grew up in uneducated and unprotected times at risk.
There are three types of skin cancer. Basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma and the most vicious of the three, melanoma.
Basal cell carcinoma is the most common of the three and accounts for about a million new cases of skin cancer each year according the the Skin Cancer Foundation. While basal cell in fairly detectable and treatable, left undetected and untreated, “it can be resistant to treatment or locally aggressive, damaging the skin around them, and sometimes invading bone and cartilage. When not treated quickly, they can be difficult to eliminate. Fortunately Read more:insurance
, Skin cancer
A senior moment! 2007-07-20 16:48:46 It occurred to me after reading a study that many retired people might be missing an opportunity to increase their inheritance without any investment risk.
This study indicated that the majority of retired people die with significant cash assets untouched. Whether that is in annuities or just left in a bank, there is cash that is going to their heirs because they just didn’t need it. The study also indicated that many retired people who are still around can identify large amounts of cash that they know they know they won’t need in their life time.
For the sake of this thought, let’s say that the amount of cash they have that fits into this category is $50,000 (the average was actually much higher than that). What if, rather than letting that sit around making 5% interest, you put the money into a single pay universal life policy. Depending on your age and health it might buy $150,000 or more of life insurance. The policy is guaranteed, so once that premium is paid the Read more:senior
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