Affordable life insurance for women with heart disease
Is it possible to find affordable life insurance for women with heart disease? Yes, but you must use an expert life insurance specialist that understands this niche area of life insurance underwriting.
Many women know that heart disease is the number one killer of men in the United States. But, heart disease is not exclusively a man’s problem.
In fact, cardiovascular disease is also the number one killer of women as well. More American women die each year of cardiovascular disease than breast cancer, and lung cancer combined.
From a life insurance standpoint coronary artery disease in women differs from men in many ways. These differences occur in risk factors, diagnosis and treatment outcomes.
RISK FACTORS-
Age– women are consistently about 10 years older than men at the initial diagnosis of coronary artery disease, and about 20 years older at the time of a myocardial infarction or heart attack.
Hypertension– Is more prevalent in women after the age of 45 than in men. Elevated blood pressure ranks second to age as a risk factor in women.
Lipids– As in men, an increase in total cholesterol increases the risk or coronary artery disease in women. The HDL or good cholesterol tends to be higher in women at all ages.
Smoking– Women who smoke are at a 2-6 times greater risk of coronary artery disease than non-smokers.
Glucose Intolerance– Glucose intolerance and diabetes are more prevalent in women than in men. They are often associated with obesity and abnormal lipid profiles. Diabetes is a significant independent risk factor for coronary artery disease in women and men. But, it imparts a 2 times higher risk of coronary artery disease in women. It appears that the presence of diabetes erases the protective gender.
Obesity- Evidence suggests that the distribution of body fat may be more important determinant of cardiovascular
risk that absolute weight. Women with the so-called “apple” shape are at a higher risk than those with the so-called “pear shape”.
DIAGNOSTIC CONSIDERATIONS-
It appears that the sensitivity of exercise stress testing is similar to men, but the false positive rate is higher with women. Therefore, the thallium stress testing significantly improves the diagnostic accuracy of coronary artery disease.
UNDERWRITING HEART DISEASE FOR WOMEN-
Silent angina and silent heart attacks are more common in women than men. The rate of early death after a heart attack is also higher among women than men. Mortality within the first year after a symptomatic heart attack is 45% in women and 10% in men.
When a company evaluates life insurance for women with heart disease, they are primarily assessing the severity of the disease that is present, and the presence of cardiac risk factors mentioned above.
One important number that the life underwriter will look for when reviewing medical records is the left ventricular function or the ejection fraction result. This number can tell the underwriter how much blood the left ventricle(the main pumping chamber of the heart) is pumping out with each contraction. A normal ejection fraction is 55%- 70%.
The smart way to evaluate your risk for life insurance
When searching for affordable term life insurance for women with heart disease, it is important to go about the process in the smartest way possible. You see, all life insurance companies have their own criteria for evaluating risks. They all evaluate medical history and lifestyle differently.
There are ways to accurately forecast premium rates for someone with pre-existing medical conditions such as heart disease. But, unfortunately most life insurance agents go about this the wrong way.
The typical life agent has no real experience with prospects that have heart disease, diabetes, etc. They simply do not know the questions to ask in order to find out if an insurance company would offer affordable rates. Instead, they sometimes just throw out premium rates for a couple of different carriers, and ask the customer to apply to these insurance companies and hope for the best.
This gives the customer a false sense of hope. First, the rate that the agent gives to the customer may not be anywhere near what the final rates would be after full medical evaluation. Secondly, the insurance company that the prospect applies to may not even specialize in underwriting women with heart disease. In this case, the application may be declined. This declination then goes to the medical information bureau and can hurt future possibilities for coverage.
As mentioned earlier, this area of underwriting is very specialized. There are only a handful of companies in the United States that actually specialize in underwriting certain medical conditions. So, if an agent does not represent one of those companies, or if they simply don’t know which companies do specialize in heart disease, you are wasting your time, money and the very real possibility of finding a good affordable offer on life insurance.
Here is the correct way to proceed with finding the absolute most affordable offer on life insurance for women with heart disease. As mentioned earlier, you must work with an agent that specializes in this market and has years of experience. Fortunately, you have landed on this page so you have found that agent.
The agent should represent all the carriers in the industry that specialize in underwriting heart disease for women.(We do).
You do not want to waste a bunch of time applying with different insurance companies. So, you must do something called a trial application. This is basically a way of finding out which insurance companies would make an offer for coverage if you applied to them. This also allows you to find out what the rates would be before actually applying for coverage.
Now, there is no way any agent or company can tell you 100% what your exact rates will be until you complete the full medical underwriting. But, with the trial application you can typically be about 95% sure of what the final rates will be.
The trial application process works by allowing your agent to get the answers to as much medical history as possible. Then present this information to the underwriting company or companies, and make them compete against each other for the best offer. The trial application is not a formal application, so your information is not reported to the medical information bureau. This is really important in order to keep any declines or high ratings off your record.
Once all the medical information is gathered and the best offer is secured, the agent would present you with the rates for the coverage you have chosen. If you feel at that time the rates are affordable, and the coverage meets your needs, then and only then would you proceed to a formal application to the chosen carrier.
Underwriting questions for life insurance for women with heart disease
Below you will find some of the questions a typical underwriting company would need answered to evaluate your risk:
- Date of Birth
- Date of heart attack
- Any history of the following? Echo-cardiogram, coronary catherization, coronary angioplasty, bypass surgery, heart failure, arrhythmias? Dates of each?
- Do you have a pacemaker of defibrillator?
- Any current medications? Dosage?
- Has follow-up stress test been completed since heart attack? Was result normal or abnormal?
- Any chest discomfort since heart attack or surgery?
- Cause of irregular heat beat? Abnormal lipids, overweight? high blood pressure, diabetes, peripheral vascular disease, carotid disease?
- Used in tobacco products in last 5 years?
- Any other major health problems? Stroke, kidney disease, diabetes, etc?
Conclusion-
We are experts in the life insurance industry dealing with heart disease in women. We know what carriers to go to and how to get the absolute best offer. If you would like to discuss your situation, please contact us at 1-888-393-9003 or mike@specialriskterm.com
