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Postponed Life Insurance
April 03, 2020
Once you go through the process of submitting a life insurance application. There will be 3 outcomes for your application:
- You’ll be approved.
- You’ll be declined.
- Or you may receive a postponement.
What does it mean if your application is postponed? In this article we will answer that question along with what you can do to find coverage elsewhere and/or be more prepared the next time you submit an application.
If you want to learn more about what it means if your life insurance application is declined, check out our article.
Why was my life insurance application postponed?
Well the good news is that your life insurance application wasn’t flat out denied, which means that the company that you applied with still thinks you may be a future candidate for insurance. They just aren’t ready to approve you yet!
Your postponement could be the result of:
- Some outstanding medical procedure that’s planned in the future.
- I.e: a future surgery or a routine diagnostic procedure.
- A doctors recommendation in your medical file that has yet to be completed.
- I.e.: a sleep study.
- Some unusual results on your life insurance medical exam.
- I.e.: abnormal liver enzymes, super high blood pressure or cholesterol, really elevated blood sugar, etc, etc…
Or your postponement could also be the result of what companies consider to be lifestyle such as:
- Poor driving history or recent DUI
- A current or recent bankruptcy
- A previous criminal record
- A positive drug test during your life insurance medical exam
- Foreign travel plans
- Dangerous hobbies
- Etc.
Life insurance application postponed due to lifestyle
Life insurance applications that are postponed due to a “lifestyle” choice are usually the easiest to deal with because after all, it’s a lifestyle choice, not a true medical issue.
With that being said, we’ve found that most life style caused postponement could have easily been avoided if:
- the life insurance agent had asked all the right questions during the initial application process, and
- the life insurance agent had access to a wide spectrum of insurance companies to choose from.
Let’s look at examples:
- Bankruptcy:
Understandably one of the most peculiar reasons to have a life insurance application postponed, bankruptcies are quickly becoming one of the most common reasons for a life insurance application to be… postponed!
Why?
The short answer is, money. For a full breakdown on the financial reasons why some life insurance companies choose not to offer life insurance for those with a recent bankruptcy on their record, please visit: Can I Get Life Insurance After Filing Bankruptcy?
The good news here is, that there are few life insurance carriers out there that will provide coverage to those that have a recent or current bankruptcy on their credit history. So for those of you who have been postponed due to bankruptcy, fear not, there still may be a chance to get insured right away.
- DUI’s
With nearly 6 million American’s with a DUI on their driving record, it’s easy to see why DUI’s can commonly cause one’s life insurance application to be postponed.
For this reason, it’s key to know which life insurance companies are going to be the most lenient when it comes to having a DUI.
Life insurance application postponed due to medical reasons
Given the scope of the issue, it’s going to be impossible to cover every medical issue that could cause a postponement on your life insurance application, so we’ll try keep it general so that you can get a feel for how the “system” works.
With that being said, let’s go back to the three examples we used before and briefly address each of them individually.
An outstanding medical procedure that’s planned in the future.
This is a tough one because it makes sense for a life insurance company to want to wait until you have had any and all future procedures completed prior to offering you life insurance coverage, especially when we are talking about future diagnostic procedures.
Now with that being said, there are a number of different surgical and non-surgical procedures out there that may cause one insurance company to want to wait and postpone your life insurance application, while another equally qualified life insurance company may be completely fine with.
So when it comes to an outstanding medical procedure, it never hurts to call us and ask about it, there’s a very good chance that you could still be insured without waiting!
A Doctor Recommendation:
Well as we all know, doctors can be full of wonderful recommendations. Unfortunately, sometimes these recommendations can have a negative effect on your life insurance application.
Now what those recommendations are, will ultimately determine what the best course of action should be, for example should you:
- Re-apply for life insurance with a more lenient life insurance carrier?
- Obtain a note from the doctor who made the initial recommendation explaining the reasoning behind the recommendation to appease the life insurance underwriter?
- Or go ahead and pursue the doctor’s initial recommendation?
Again, without knowing the specifics, it’s impossible to know what would be the best course of action, however it only takes a minute to give us a call and we’ll be happy to help!
Some unusual results on your life insurance exam
Now with this one, it’s important to note that if you haven’t seen a doctor in 20 years, it may be a good idea to go and have a physical done so that you can compare the results that were collected by the life insurance company with that of your primary care physician. Because who knows, maybe these “unusual” results could be a sign that you need to start taking better care of yourself.
With that said however, life insurance mobile medics are not doctors!
They are mobile phlebotomist’s who are trained to:
- Draw blood.
- Measure blood pressure.
- Properly store and process examine specimens.
- Record ones height and weight.
- And in some cases perform an EKG.
Their day consists of traveling from one appointment to the next seeing anywhere from 1 to 5 clients in a day.
Now let’s consider this for a moment. It’s generally believed that to get the best results on your life insurance medical exam:
- You should fast anywhere from 8 to 10 hours prior to your exam.
- You should avoid any caffeine or tobacco immediately before your exam.
- And in general your blood pressure and cholesterol levels will be lowest first thing in the morning.
If you need help navigating this process and would like to apply with a different life insurance company, give us a call and we can guide you through the approval process.
