Securing life insurance after a cardiac catheterization
A cardiac catheterization is a common procedure and one of the best ways for determining the location and extent of cardiovascular disease.
An underwriter for a life insurance company will want to review the cardiac catheterization report when evaluating the risk class for those applying for life insurance.
The catheterization report can provide a description of the location and extent of atrterial narrowing within each artery. Disease may occur in the proximal(close to the origin) portion of the artery. It can occur in the mid-section or in the end(distal) section. Where the disease occurs can have more or an affect on the heart muscle.
An applicant who has a cardiac catheterization report that shows a lesion in the mid-section or distal part of an artery could theoretically have a better risk classification than one that shows disease in the proximal area. For this reason, the cardiac catheterization plays an important role in determining the final underwriting of someone with coronary disease.
Another important area that underwriters look at when reviewing life insurance after a cardiac catheterization is the area of the left ventricle of the heart. The left ventricle has primary importance because it pumps blood to the whole body. It’s blood comes mainly from the left anterior descending artery.
A heart catheterization describes the coronary disease in the LAD and examines how effectively the left ventricle contracts. Life insurance applicants with diminished left ventricular function have a poorer prognosis than those with good function.
Left ventricular function is commonly expressed in one important measurement that underwriters value greatly:
EJECTION FRACTION(EF) – This is the best measure of left ventricular function. When the left ventricular walls contract, blood is ejected into the aorta and throughout the body. The amount of blood that is ejected is called the ejection fraction. Normal ejection fraction of 55% or greater is normal. Ejection Fraction below 50% usually indicates some degree of left ventricular dysfunction.
The lower the percentage, the worse the function and prognosis. Ejection Fraction percentage below 40% is unfavorable for most life insurance companies.
Knowing the Ejection Fraction percentage goes a long way in knowing what kind of offer for life insurance is possible.
How do I find the best company for life insurance after a cardiac catheterization?
It’s can sometimes seem hard to decipher which life insurance carrier will offer the best rates for someone after a cardiac catheterization.
This area of life insurance underwriting is very specialized. Basically, you will find only a handful of insurance companies specializing in this niche area of life insurance underwriting.
It is important to know that many agents are not familiar with the companies that write these particular risks. Fortunately, you have landed on the right page. We are specialists in the life insurance area known as “special risk” underwriting.
Many typical agents do not have the knowledge and experience in this field. A typical agent may not know what questions to ask their customer, and can actually sometimes harm the customers chances for a competitive offer.
Your agent will actually play a crucial role in finding and negotiating with the different carriers for the best offer. In order to do this, the agent must have years of experience in knowing what companies to talk to and how to submit a case.
An affordable offer for life insurance after a cardiac catheterization is possible with the right information and skills.
In order to start the process toward finding the right company, the applicant should be prepared to answer some questions regarding their health history. This will help the underwriter get a clearer picture of what type of risk they are dealing with. Below are some of those questions.
- Date Of Birth?
- Male or Female?
- Date of cardiac catheterization?
- Have you had any of the following? Heart attack, Bypass surgery, Angioplasty? If so, date?
- Are you currently taking any medications? If so, what type?
- Any history of the following? Chest pain, high cholesterol, diabetes, family history of heart disease, high blood pressure?
- Height/Weight?
- Any history of tobacco use? If so, what type?
- Any other major health history? I.E. cancer, liver disease, etc.
In addition to the answers to the questions above, it would be helpful if you could obtain a copy of your cardiac catheterization report.
The correct way to submit for an offer of life insurance
As mentioned earlier, many agents go about getting an offer for coverage the wrong way. In fact, the way you go about it can actually harm your chances for coverage.
An agent with no experience in dealing with individuals who have pre-exisiting medical conditions may simply tell their client to submit an application or multiple applications to different insurance companies and wait to see who offers the best rate. This would be wrong.
What if none of the carriers the inexperienced agent submits applications to actually specializes in underwriting individuals for life insurance with cardiac history? You have just wasted time filling out paperwork and getting examined for companies that had no intention of offering an affordable policy.
In addition, these companies now have reported this information to the Medical Information Bureau and you now have this in your file.
You see each life insurance company looks at your health and lifestyle differently. They each have underwriting criteria that they use to evaluate risk. If a companies criteria is to only insure people with an absolute clean bill of health with no pre-exisitng medical conditions, it makes no sense to send an application to them.
As mentioned earlier, there are only a handful of life insurance companies in the industry that will give you the absolute best rates with pre-existing medical conditions. But, if the agent isn’t aware of this, the customer is out of luck.
The agent that handles your case is the absolute most important factor when finding affordable life insurance after a cardiac catheterization.
Here is the correct way to go about finding the absolute lowest rates of life insurance after a cardiac catheterization.
Your agent will get the answers to the questions above and help secure a copy of the cardiac catheterization. At that time, he will go to work shopping the carriers that DO specialize in the best offers for pre-exisiting medical conditions.
The agent will negotiate only by phone and from an informal basis. No actual application will be submitted until the agent negotiates the best possible offer from the best company. This not only saves time on filling out paperwork and getting examined, but also will save money by knowing that you have secured the absolute lowest offer in the marketplace.
In addition, by not formally applying for coverage, no personal information is submitted to the Medical Information Bureau to become part of your personal file history.
Once and only once the best offer is secured will a formal application be submitted along with any other medical requirements needed by the insured.
This is how an experienced and knowledgeable agent handles life insurance risks with pre-existing medical conditions. This is how you can be assured you have found the absolute best offer available anywhere in the country.
Conclusion-
If you have a need for life insurance protection and would like to discuss your options available with an expert in this area, please contact us at 1-888-393-9003 or mike@specialriskterm.com Thank you for reading this blog.
