Searching for life insurance with kidney disease
If you are searching for life insurance with kidney disease you must work with an expert. Fortunately, you have come to the right spot.
Your agent must have the knowledge and experience to find the most affordable rates available for individuals searching for life insurance with kidney disease. The agent should have several carriers that specialize in underwriting life insurance with kidney disease.
What are underwriters looking for when underwriting life insurance with kidney disease?
According the National Kidney Foundation over 26 million Americans are living with kidney disease.
Kidney disease often requires a detailed, expensive, and time-consuming investigation to make a definite diagnosis. Many chronic kidney diseases slowly destroy kidney tissue and can lead to chronic renal failure.
It is up to an underwriter with a life insurance company to determine if their is a diagnosis of past or present kidney disease.
Two important questions need to be answered to determine if affordable life insurance rates are available:
- Is there any current evidence of kidney failure or insufficiency?
Kidney Function Tests(KFT’s) will resolve this question. Even though the blood urea nitrogen(BUN) and serum creatinine do not rise until about two thirds of the renal tissue has been destroyed, they are the best tests available.
The serum creatinine is more specific and more sensitive than the BUN. Serum creatinine will give more precise information about the state of the kidney function. Below are the typical readings for kidney function tests.
Normal Impairment- BUN up to 25 mg/100 ml, serum creatinine up to 1.7 mg/100 ml. Creaitnine clearance greater than 90 ml/ min
Mild Impairment- BUN 26 to 35 mg /100 ml, serum creatinine up to 1.8 to 2.5 mg/100 ml. Creatinine clearance 55 to 90 ml/ min
Severe Impairment- BUN greater than 35 mg/100 ml, serum creatinine greater than 2.5 mg/100. Creatinine clearance less than 55 ml/min
- Is there any evidence of active kidney disease?
Urine specimens usually provide this answer. The amount of protein together with the number and type of cells casts in the urine are guides to the activity of the disease.
Other kidney investigations may be described in hospital reports, renogram, arteriogram or renal biopsy. When these are available, individual consideration by a medical director is often necessary as they can greatly influence the final rate assessment.
What is the best way to get the lowest rate on life insurance with kidney disease?
Often, individuals looking for life insurance with kidney disease are hesitant to try and get life insurance. They typically do not feel they can find affordable rates due to their medical history.
This is why it is important to work with a specialist. Since their are many different types of kidney disease, it is often difficult to obtain an accurate quote up front with a typical insurance agent.
You only want to work with an agent that offers carriers specializing in life insurance with kidney disease.
We recommend speaking to us and giving us as much information as you can regarding your medical history. It is important that an insured be upfront with all their medical history. If you have copies of recent doctors visits or copies of your kidney function tests this will accelerate the process of finding the most affordable rates.
We will then take your information and speak to several different underwriters. This saves you time and money by allowing us to shop the market for you. This informal process also keeps your information out of the Medical Information Bureau file.
In the insurance world this is what we call informal shopping or “just looking”.
We will then receive tentative offers from several different insurance carriers. After reviewing the different offers we will illustrate a plan of coverage based on the amount and product requested.
At that time, you can determine if you wish to formally apply for the tentative offer by going thru complete underwriting.
Typical case study for someone looking for life insurance with kidney disease
Tom is a 45 year old male with a wife and two children. Tom has a current term life policy that is expiring. He is in the market for new coverage for $1,000,000.
Tom purchased his first policy 20 years ago. Since that time, Tom was diagnosed with moderate Chronic Glomerulonephritis (CGN). Tom is concerned that he might not be able to secure new coverage or that coverage will be too expensive.
Tom speaks to his local P&C agent that handles his home and auto coverage. Tom applies for life insurance with this well known company and hopes for the best.
Tom goes thru a medical exam and has blood and urine taken. After several weeks, Tom’s property and casualty agent calls with the news he had been dreading. He had been declined for life insurance due to his medical history.
Tom’s property & casualty agent apologizes that he could not get him coverage. He states that since he is a captive agent with his property and casualty company he cannot offer any other carriers.
Tom’s P & C agent does know an independent agent that specializes in coverage for individuals with medical history and recommends him to us.
We speak to Tom and find out about his history of CGN. We are also able to secure current records from his personal physician that gives us a look at his current kidney function tests.
We now speak to 5 different companies that specialize in life insurance with kidney disease. After doing their assessment of Tom’s risk we go back to Tom with the offers:
- Company A says they can make an offer with a 300% rate up over their standard rates
- Company B tell us their offer is also a 300% rate up over their standard rates
- Company C makes an offer of 150% rate up over their standard rates
- Company D prefers to make no offer until KFT’s are totally normal
- Company E will make an offer also at 150% rating above standard rates
Since company’s C and E offered the best risk classification, we run the premium numbers for both of these carriers and present them to Tom.
Company C’s rates are approximately $50 per month less than competing Company E’s rates. Tom is excited that not only does he have a company willing to make an offer, but at a very reasonable cost.
Tom applies formally to Company C and within just a couple of weeks has a new policy in hand for $1,000,000 of protection.
This example illustrates the power of knowing who to speak to when you are dealing with some medical history. If Tom would have given up after the original P&C carrier declined him, his wife and kids would not have the protection they needed.
If you would like to discuss your situation, please contact us at 1-888-393-9003 or mike@specialriskterm.com
