While it’s possible to get life insurance without a medical exam, let’s deal with four common instances and their tradeoffs. First, understand that in many cases, the “medical exam” is obtaining a urine and blood sample and that’s it. The medical professional even comes to your home. Only at higher amounts of insurance, e.g. $1 million and over, do the exams become more involved and will include an EKG and other tests.
1. Life Insurance ads you see on television. Typically, these policies are very overpriced and that’s how the insurance company can take the risk of insuring someone who is potentially applying from their hospital bed. By charging outrageous premiums and also offering very low levels of insurance (typically a maximum of $50,000 of death benefit), the insurance company reduces its risk. If your health is even mediocre, you can probably get less expensive insurance on your own if you agree to a medical exam.
2. Group life insurance through an association or employer. Typically, if you’re working, the insurance company “bets” that the pool of people are young enough that incidence of poor heath is rare and they can take the risk of insuring large groups without a medical exam. But if the pool of insureds is a retiree group, the insurance company will either charge large premiums and/or issue very small policies to reduce its risk.
3. I know a woman whose religious beliefs precluded getting care from doctors. However, she had a significant estate and leaned of the important role that life insurance plays in estate planning. She refused to have a medical exam from the insurance company appointed doctor. While she could not avoid an exam because of her age (80), she did agree to have an exam from a doctor she knew and in this case, the policy was of significant size and the insurance company permitted the exam by the insured’s chosen physician. This is rare but possible. The insurance company typically wants its contractor to do the exam.
4. Young insureds applying for term insurance are the other category of people where the exam may not be necessary.
Here’s the advice. While it’s possible to get life insurance without a medical exam or an exam on your terms, always ask about the tradeoff. Would the premium be lower if you did get an exam? Can you choose the physician? Could you get more coverage? If for any reason you are uncomfortable with an exam but have interest in life protection, call and we can explain the alternatives available to you.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS