Non-Medical Underwriting
Non-Medical Underwriting Demystified
It Is Now Possible To Buy Good Life Insurance Without Medical Testing. The "Old Kind" Of Policy Always Made An Applicant Submit To Extensive Medical Testing. This Has Changed And Here Is How It Works When Its Demystified.
When we are finished asking medical questions and quoting prices if everything sounds good to you, with your permission, we will fill out an application and submit it to the insurance company for approval. This is where the Underwriter for the insurance company looks at your application to decide if the company will offer you coverage at the price I have quoted you.
If you told me everything I needed to know and that matches the application the chance of getting you approved for your coverage is extremely good, so tell me everything, even if it seems insignificant. Of course the insurance company always has the final say of yes or no.
This is what will happen: After the application is submitted, rather than send you to a doctor for a physical or send a nurse to your home to collect blood and urine the underwriter will order reports that are publicly available with information about your health. If you work with me on your application, I promise you there will be no surprises.
With no red flags from either of these companies the Underwriter will usually approve your policy within 2-3 weeks which is much faster than the 6-10 weeks if full underwriting is required.
This information is available to insurance companies under the Fair Credit Reporting Act or FCRA law and is supplied by the following companies: (Note: This is not a credit check)
Medical Information Bureau (MIB): This is a company funded by insurance companies for information sharing purposes. If you have applied for life insurance in the last 10-12 years and reported medical conditions or surgeries a record of your information will be available for insurance companies to inquire against when you submit an application. Please do your best to tell me all your conditions and medications during the application process to avoid adverse disclosures. If you have any special situations let me know and we will present them showing your best face forward.
Milliman Intelliscript: The company catalogues all your prescriptions for the last 10-12 years. Medications can sometimes tell underwriters of your underlying medical conditions and verifies or adds to information released by MIB.
Note: Sometimes medicines have more uses than the primary. Secondary or "off-label" use of medications is important to discuss. An example would be that a young couple who became my customers. They saw a fertility doctor to conceive. The doctor prescribed a cancer medication that had off-label benefits to aid in fertility. This caused an initial decline that I was able to fix because I knew about it. Just let me know and I will Demystify your application process too!