We have been blessed with a lot of success in helping those with well controlled bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder and depression, find life insurance companies who will, first and foremost, give them a fair hearing and secondly, make fair offers on coverage.
I was contacted recently by a person that had been diagnosed with cyclothymia, a mild form of bipolar disorder. At first, being unfamiliar with cyclothymia, as opposed to just bipolar 1 or bipolar 2, I immediately googled it which helped me to structure the wording of the email I sent out for trial offers. I didn’t cite Google, but was pleasantly surprised when an underwriting response from one of the life insurance companies included a definition from Google as part of their reason for offering preferred or preferred plus rates. The following is the response I received.
“Cyclothymia is a chronic bipolar disorder consisting of short periods of mild depression and short periods of hypomania (lasting a few days to a few weeks), …per definition in Google. Feel tentative Preferred Non Tobacco even the possibility of Preferred Best since description below implies good control with no major episodes.”
It is refreshing to me that underwriters are using all of the technological tools available to help them correctly assess mortality risk. While it may seem like a logical thing to do, the underwriter who actually digs and fits the pieces of the puzzle together is rare.
Bottom line. While I am excited because underwriters are starting to embrace technology, we should all be excited to see the words preferred and preferred best in the same sentence with bipolar disorder. All the pieces of the puzzle have to fit in order for that to happen, but it is attainable.
Post from: Ed Hinerman On Life Insurance
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