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UNDERWRITING
Your broker MUST be an expert in this area. This area can be the difference between being approved, declined and/or having your insurance premium rated up. Also, you can have riders placed on your policy for pre-existing conditions which places a time period where your insurance won’t cover the pre-existing condition. Example: You had injured your knee and the insurance company places a one rider on your knee, which means if you have any further problems with your knee during the next year your insurance won’t cover it. Insurance companies can even place a waiver on a condition, which means they will never cover the condition. When your premium is rated up it means the insurance company increased the original quoted premium by a certain percentage based on your previous health. You then have the choice of accepting the new terms or rejecting their counter offer.
Underwriting is based on a point system. Points are assigned to each health condition. There are gray areas as it pertains to underwriting so it is very important that you have an insurance broker that understands these gray areas, and how it will affect your application. There are certain health issues that can be left off an application, and others that MUST be included. Your broker MUST know how to handle this.
Each insurance company operates differently, and it is important that your broker knows what "these" differences are. One company approves or rates up the premium, and another declines. One company includes smokers with no rate up, and another rates up. One company declines for "acid reflux" and another will waiver it. As you can see this goes on and on. Please make sure you have an expert broker (who comes at no charge) who will advise you every step of the way!
Finally, your broker should have a system on "learning" why you were rated up, and how the "point system" affected you. There is a "procedure" on how to handle this. Our feeling is we want to "learn" how the insurance company arrived at their decision, as this will help us determine "what is the best move for you".
Very seldom should you ever apply for insurance and have it denied if your agent is good and doing his job correctly. Every agent has a field underwriting guideline from the insurance company and they can check your pre-existing conditions against the guidelines and will know how the underwriters will handle your case. Also, every company allows the agent to submit a pre-underwriting review to determine if the person will qualify. The agent doesn’t place your name on this request, but instead submits it as a Jane Doe to keep your information private.
In the event that you are denied and uninsurable there are plans available that don’t underwrite at all and are guaranteed issued. The bottom line is your agent needs to know what companies accept what conditions, so you are not denied when you submit an application. There will be those times no matter how hard your agent researched everything that the underwriter will turn down the application, but those times should be very rare.
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