There are life insurance choices for healthy people after 50 and for unhealthy people obtaining life insurance over 50. If you are healthy or not to unhealthy you obviously have many more choices and the whole suite of products and death benefit amounts are available to you. These products that are fully underwritten will assign you an insurance rating after underwriting which will determine your premium. Depending on your age, 10,15, 20, and 30 year term can be available to you. Also, permanent products like whole life, universal life, and guaranteed universal life. Guaranteed universal life, is very popular with people over 50 as it is a permanent death benefit at the lowest possible cost. While it doesn’t accumulate cash value like whole life, it will guarantee coverage until age 121.
If you are unhealthy and incapable of getting approved through full underwriting, then you can go for the guaranteed issue life insurance. These products are issued even if you are uninsurable in the traditional sense, but you will pay a heavy premium for these products. On top of that you will be limited to face amounts up to only about 50,000.
We generally suggest clients get there life insurance when they are still healthy and can qualify for fully underwritten products. When you get over 50, more health issues can come into play and it is a matter of time before something will affect your insurance rating. While the health issue may not make you uninsurable, it may force you to pay 40% more than you would have 6 months ago for the same coverage. Please call us today at 800-554-5142 and we can walk you through all the various options based on your specific situation.
There are life insurance products on the market that are guarantee issue. This means that it is guaranteed that you will be able to get covered by the plan even with health concerns. This is obviously a good option for clients who have serious health issues and can’t qualify for a regular life insurance plan that is fully underwritten. If you can qualify for an underwritten product, it will allow you to buy larger amounts of insurance and it will be much more cost effective. With a guaranteed issue product you can expect to pay at least twice as much and be limited to purchasing about 50,000 in death benefit. AARP offers a very popular guaranteed issue program. Often times through group insurance you can get a larger amount of guarantee issue, but 50,000 is usually about the max in the individual market. The caveat to most guarantee issue life insurance policies, is that they may not pay a death benefit in the first two or three years. If something were to happen to the insured in the first couple years, the beneficiary would get all premiums paid in, plus interest. While that is better than a sharp stick in the eye, it obviously provides no leverage in the first couple years.
Typically, we will work with clients on their specific underwriting situation and help them find the carrier (s) that will underwrite there issue the most favorably. If they can qualify for the fully underwritten product, than we will go with that route. If not, then we will go to guaranteed issue products and figure out the best fit. Some clients don’t want to take the medical exam and we have options for that too. This is more expensive than underwritten, but it is available.
