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Is “No Medical Questions Asked” Life Insurance Real?

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Is “No Medical Questions Asked” Insurance Real?
Yep, But Many Variations Exist

Questionable Health? It’s Actually OK…
You have almost certainly received a postcard which advertises life insurance. Here are some of the snippets used to get your attention. Frequently, these postcards will have something that looks like No Medical Exam Required,”  “No Medical Questions Asked,” etc. Technically, that may be true.

Yabit, We Can Get the Info Without Asking You

Your prescription history is stored, and is accessible. When you are signing an application for life insurance, you are almost certainly granting permission to the carrier to access this information. It is very, very unlikely that the prescription database is incorrect. Further, it is also very likely that if you are prescribed a particular medication X, then it is for medical situation A. Voila, the carrier knows your medical history.

All Is Not Lost, No-Medical Life Insurance Does Exist
There are conditions, as expected, but it is true that there are viable life insurance policies that exist for those that will fail medical examination.

  • The benefit amount will be limited (almost impossible to purchase $100,000 on a guaranteed-issue basis)
  • You may not be insured for the full benefit amount on day 1. This is called Graded Benefit, and you are insured for a portion of the full benefit amount on day 1, and that increases over time.
  • The cost of this insurance will be higher than other life insurance. This means that those that CAN pass medical questions would likely receive better value for his/her money at other carriers.
There are MANY carriers, and carriers have many varieties of questions, levels of questions, and levels of benefits. To simply answer a flyer, without further information? Probably not the best approach.
Costly? Maybe. Worth It? It Can Be.
We encountered this situation the other day. A married couple, seriously ill husband greater than 65 years old, and healthy wife, age 55. The issue is that if the husband passes away prior to the wife turning 62, She will not be able to receive Social Security benefits until she turns 62, at the earliest. That will be a huge problem for her. So while the cost is high in this case, there can be reasons that this is necessary, and valuable.