No Medical Exam Life Insurance

One of the first things you need to understand about life insurance is that the entire premise is based on
probability and statistics. There is a reason why insurance companies charge less premiums to younger
people than do for older people and it is that they are less likely to have to pay out a death benefit for
someone in their thirties than they are for someone in their seventies.

Insurance companies, through the compilation of years of research and statistics, have learned how to
put a percentage on the likelihood of a truly accidental death, such as a car accident. They also have
figured out that certain lifestyle choices can increase that someone’s demise is not accidental at all.
They compensate for having to pay out death benefits unexpectedly by spreading out the risk of that to
the thousands of other customers.

When you fill out an application for life insurance you will be asked questions about your activities that
might affect your premiums (e.g. cliff-jumping, sky-diving). But, the number one criteria that will affect
your premium besides your age is the state of your health.

Even the most basic of life insurance applications will ask questions about your health. And the
questions are heavily weighted towards matters relating to your heart, lungs and vascular conditions.
There are not many questions, if any, about your teeth or about skin condition because people very
rarely die from problems related to these areas—unless it is skin cancer.

As you get closer to purchasing life insurance you should expect to have to do a little more than vouch
for your physical condition on a piece of paper. The amount of coverage you are looking for will
determine how detailed the medical examination will be. As you might expect the higher the amount of
coverage the more information the insurance company will want about your health.

A 40 year-old male seeking a $100,000 policy will probably not need a full-blown medical exam, but
rather have one administered by a paramedic or a nurse. This typically means taking an oral fluid
sample, drawing some blood, taking a urine sample, measuring blood pressure, taking a pulse and the
usual thing such as measuring height and weight. It might include an electrocardiogram.

Once a policy exceeds $100,000 or the applicant is over 40 years of age the insurance company will
require a more complete medical exam than the one described. This type of exam will be administered
by a medical doctor. Some insurance companies request that the doctor be certified as an internist or
heart specialist rather than just a general practitioner. The medical exam from a doctor will probably
involve the same things as mentioned above but could also involve a stress test, and a thorough review f
the body’s systems. The life insurance company wants to know what the potential is, if any, for kidney
failure, heart failure, liver impairments that may put the insured at risk of not reaching the average age
of death. This may sound callous, but the insurance company is trying to minimize risk. It simply could
not be in existence if it continually paid out death benefits to people who clearly were in poor health or
engaged in high-risk behavior.
So you may be wondering if you can get life insurance and somehow avoiding having to undergo a
medical exam. You can. And more and more companies are making this option available to their current
and potential customers.

The no medical exam option is only available for term insurance. To date, there are no whole or
universal life policies available with the no medical exam option, it is only available for term life
insurance.

While you may be spared the inconvenience of medical exam that doesn’t mean you will avoid
answering questions about your physical health.

You will still have to answer questions about your dietary habits, exercise habits and how much you
smoke (if at all) and how much you drink (if at all). You will not gain anything by failing to mention any
serious or pre-existing conditions. If it is discovered that you died from a condition that you did not
mention on your application it is quite possible that the death benefit could be denied. This would put
your family in an unnecessarily precarious position.

The main advantage to no medical exam life Insurance is convenience. If you opt to go this route you
need to know that some of the riders that are present in regular term will not be present in No Medical
Exam. For example, there will probably not be an accelerated death benefit, which is a rider that would
allow for a payout in the event of a diagnosis of a terminal disease.

There will also be a ceiling on the amount of term insurance you can get without a physical, which is
currently at about $500,000.

As you might expect, the premiums for no medical exam term life will be more expensive than regular
term life insurance. You are paying for the convenience. It is the same principle that makes a bottle of
water at the grocery store be cheaper than a bottle of water at the convenience store.

As with any insurance policy or financial document you should read a no medical exam life insurance
policy very closely. You should have all your “What happens if?” questions answered before you sign it.
It may be helpful to compare a no medical exam life insurance policy to a typical term policy. This may
prompt you to just go ahead and get the medical exam for regular term. Then again, it might not. That
will be something for you to decide.

The no medical exam life insurance policy may seem like a product that has been created recently to
accommodate the lives of very busy people who simply do not have time to go through a laborious
medical exam. That is not necessarily true, but the product has evolved in recent years to meet not only
the scheduling needs of its policyholders but its financial ones as well.