Declined for Life Insurance Because of your Age?

When you apply for life insurance protection, there are dozens and dozens of factors that the insurance company is going to look at to determine how much they are going to charge you for protection or if they will accept you for life insurance.

The company is going to determine how much risk that you are when deciding if they are going to approve you for life insurance.

The more risk that you are, the more that you’re going to pay. If you’re too high of a risk, then the company is going to decline your application.

One of the biggest factors that the company is going to look at is your age. The older that you are, the more that you’re going to pay for life insurance.

There is a chance that the insurance company may have declined you for coverage based on your age. If that’s true, there are several things that you should know.

At Over50LifeInsurance.com we know that shopping for life insurance can be stressful, especially the older that you get.

This article is going to look at your options for life insurance if you’ve been declined for your coverage.

Declined, What Now?

If you’ve ever been declined for life insurance, you might be worried that you can’t get insurance coverage. That isn’t true.

Regardless of your age or your health, you can get affordable life insurance protection.

The first thing that you should know if you’ve been declined before because of your age is that you don’t have to go without insurance protection.

There are several options for getting quality insurance at an affordable price.

One simple option is to go with a guaranteed acceptance life insurance policy.

As you can probably guess from the name, these plans allow you to get life insurance regardless of your age or any pre-existing health conditions that you have.

Most insurance companies will accept clients up to age 85 or 90.

With these policies, all that you have to do is give the insurance company your age, your gender, and how you want to pay. After that, you’ll be approved for coverage.

The problem with guaranteed acceptance plans is that you’re going to be severely limited to how much coverage that you can buy.

Most guaranteed acceptance policies will only allow you to purchase around $25,000 worth of insurance. For most families, that won’t be nearly enough coverage.

Not having life insurance is one of the worst mistakes that you can make (aside from having no coverage at all). Before you purchase one of these policies, make sure that they will give your family enough money to get through the difficult time.

Working with an Independent Insurance Agent

Another option is to find a company that will accept you for life insurance. Every company is different, and all of them have various medical underwriting criteria and rating systems.

That means that all of the companies are going to view your age differently. Some companies are going to have a more lenient stance on age while others are going to have a stricter stance on age.

Some companies offer better rates for diabetics while others will look at you at you more favorably if you have a history heart disease.

Getting affordable life insurance over age 50 can more of a challenge than it is when you are in your 20’s an 30’s.  As we all know most people in their 20’s and 30’s tend to be fairly healthy and most don’t take any prescription medications.

However, by the time you get into your 50’s the chances that you will have developed even a minor health condition and that you might now be taking some type of medication increases quite a bit.

It’s important that you share with us as much as you can about your medical history.

The more information that you can share with us the more it will help us determine the insurance company that is going to look at your application most favorably.

We know many people get a little embarrassed or uncomfortable discussing various health problems.

However, we want you to know that much like your doctor we are also used to discussing the specifics of your medical history.

If you have been declined for life insurance the first thing you need to do is to find out why.

Often times people will take a medical exam as a part of the application process and as a result of the exam something is discovered in the labs that they didn’t know about.

For example, we submitted an application for a 64 year old man who as far as he knew was pretty healthy.

The only issue he had that he knew about was that his blood pressure was a little high.  However, that was well under control with one prescription medication.

As a result we submitted the application to a company that approves people for high blood pressure at preferred plus rates.

Of course this assumes they have no other adverse medical history and that they meet the guidelines to be approved at the best rate class.

After completing the medical exam to his surprise it was discovered that his PSA was elevated.

As a result the insurance company declined his application.  He went to his doctor to follow up on this.

The doctor did a full work up on him and ended up doing a biopsy.  It was discovered that it was just an enlarged prostate.  There was no cancer.

We then asked the insurance company to reconsider his application.  The insurance company reviewed his most recent medical records and went ahead and approved him at favorable rates.

Another situation that can happen if you been declined before is that you may still be able to get coverage with another insurance company.

It’s important to do as much homework upfront to help prevent a decline, but know that just because you were declined with one insurance company it doesn’t mean you can’t get affordable coverage with another company.

We helped one lady who was also pretty healthy overall.  Her only issue was she was considered to be too underweight for a lot of insurance companies.

As a result if we submitted an application to those companies she would have been declined.

She was 5’7″ and weighed between 103 to 105lbs.  Although guidelines vary from one insurance company to another a lot of companies consider anyone with a BMI under 18.5 to be underweight.

Her BMI assuming 103lbs was 16.3.  She would need to weigh about 118lbs at her height to have a BMI of 18.5.

We were able to get her coverage at standard rates because we knew what company would look at this most favorably.  In fact, we discussed this with the underwriter at the insurance company first to make sure their view hadn’t changed.

Once we received confirmation from the insurance company we proceeded with submitting the application.

It’s so important to understand that some companies are going to offer you affordable life insurance while other companies are going to reject you for insurance.

It’s vital that you find the best company for you. It’s the difference in getting an affordable plan or getting one that’s going to break your bank every month.

Another way to improve your chances of getting approved is enhancing other areas of your life. You can’t change your age, but there are several other factors that you can change.

Things like tobacco usage or your health are going to play a significant role in how you pay for your coverage and your chances of getting approved.

If you’re a smoker, kicking those cigarettes can cut your premiums in half and drastically improve your chances of getting a quality life insurance plan.

Regardless if you decide to purchase a guaranteed acceptance policy or go with a traditional plan, it’s important that you compare dozens of quotes before you decide which one is best for you.

There are hundreds and hundreds of companies on the market, and all of them are going to offer you different rates. You could spend hours and hours calling different agents.

Instead of wasting all of that time, let one of our independent agents do all of that dirty work for you. Our agents work with dozens and dozens of highly rated companies across the nation. That means that we can bring a personalized set of quotes directly to you.

Working with our agents can save you both time and money on your life insurance protection.

Independent agents don’t work with one company, which means you don’t have to worry about them selling you additional coverage that you don’t need or plans that are overpriced.

You never know what’s going to happen tomorrow, which means that you shouldn’t wait any longer to get the insurance coverage that your family deserves.

If something tragic were to happen to you, and you didn’t have life insurance coverage, your family would be stuck with a mountain of debt and no way to pay for those expenses.

If you have any questions about life insurance for people over 50, please contact one of our agents today. We would love to answer those questions and ensure that you’re getting the best plan possible.

You can contact us or use the quote form on the site. We would be happy to provide you with a personalized set of quotes.