Know The Ropes Of Placing Clients Who Have A Heart Condition

On the other hand, if the individual is still smoking a pack or so a day, gorging himself on moms apple pie ? la mode, and buying bigger pants, most underwriters will take a pass. Their attitude will be, “if he doesnt care, neither do we!”

The history of issuing insurance to those with heart disease has changed considerably over the years, as medical science has developed more and more sophisticated medical technology.

In the 1960s, I recall trying to insure a man who recently had heart transplant surgery. The underwriter told me: “We dont insure transplant cases.” Yet that prospective insured, a prominent local businessperson, lived nearly 30 years after his surgery.

Angioplasty and bypass surgery are terms that were never heard of 30 or 40 years ago. But they are as routine today as traffic accidents. What the agent should keep in mind is that the so-called tough cases arent tough at all until the general agent or underwriting company says they are a decline.

Agents can and should help locate, gather and furnish all pertinent medical information to make the underwriters job easier and speed the underwriting process. And, when needed, the agent should get his client/prospect involved; a prime example being asking the applicant to call the doctors office to request his/her personal medical history.

Further, the agent should ask the client/prospect if he or she has had recent follow-up visits or stress EKGs or any testing to quantify and qualify the current condition of the heart. Asking the applicant to find out his or her “ejection fraction” from the doctor enables the impaired risk general agency to quickly zero in on a salable offer.

In addition, an agent should know the experience level of the agency with whom he or she is working. For example, has the general agent been doing tough case underwriting for a long time or is your case the agencys very first? Does the agency have an experienced underwriter on retainer? Does the agency have a medical director available to evaluate cases before the cases are sent to the home office? The general agencys answer should be in the affirmative.

Finally, it behooves agents never to abuse a relationship with general agents who have gone the extra mile to help. For instance, it is bad form to go to a brokerage agency with a seemingly impossible case, obtain a great offer from that agency on that case, and then go to another agency for a few points more commission, be declined, then go back the first agency for help. Here, the Golden Rule still seems to work best. To paraphrase: “Do to your GA as you would have your GA do to you.”

, CLU, is president of Executive Brokerage Services Inc., a Pittsburgh, Pa., independent brokerage general agency specializing in the special risk market. His e-mail is: micasix8executivebrokerage.com.

Reproduced from National Underwriter Life & Health/Financial Services Edition, November 18, 2002. Copyright 2002 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.