No medical life insurance is a simplified issue life insurance product that offers quick, comprehensive life insurance coverage for insureds between 6 months and 80 years of age, without any need for a medical exam or blood tests.
No medical exam life insurance is designed to reduce the hustles of regular life insurance underwriting. Regular underwriting usually takes time, aside from the lead time of waiting for your actual medical examination appointment, the underwriting process also takes time since the insurance underwriters have to wait for your lab results before making a decision of whether or not you’re approved for coverage.
With regular insurance providers, your application can get denied or rated for reasons like poor health, lifestyle, and pre-existing conditions. If you’ve been previously declined coverage by a regular insurance carrier, a no-medical life insurance coverage is right for you.
How does No Medical Exam Life Insurance Work?
In essence, no medical life insurance is a simplified issue life insurance coverage, where medical underwriting is drastically reduced, so no blood draw is ever involved not unless if you’re looking to qualify for better rates. This way, your rate of approval is improved even if your health condition or lifestyle isn’t one we would consider ideal.
There are generally four candidates for a no medical life insurance coverage:
- Clients with pre-existing conditions.
- Clients with less than an ideal lifestyle.
- Clients who are looking for a quick and simple life insurance approval process.
- Clients who don’t like being poked with needles.
A no-medical life insurance coverage basically works just like regular insurance coverages; once your policy is in force, you’re covered as long as you make your monthly contributions or when your policy is paid up, in the case of a 20-year paid-up permanent insurance policies.
Take note, however, that since the insurer is taking higher risks by bypassing medical exams and by accepting candidates with pre-existing conditions, premiums for no medical life insurance policies are usually higher than regular life insurance coverage.
Types of No-Medical Life Insurance
Just like any other life insurance coverage, there are generally two types of life insurance policies:
- Permanent
- Term
Permanent life insurance policies cover life insureds for life. Term insurance policies, on the other hand, cover the life insureds for the term of the policy which ranges from 10, 20, 25, or 30 years.
If you’ve been declined coverage by a regular insurance carrier, it’s a good idea to apply for a permanent coverage to secure your insurability. Well, almost everyone gets approved for a no-medical life insurance coverage, but there’s a catch!
Not everyone gets the same type of life insurance coverage when it comes to no medical life insurance; your coverage depends on your health condition and lifestyle.
No medical life insurance policies have different coverage classes, so to get an accurate no medical life insurance quote, the best way is to start by answering the insurance company’s eligibility questions. This also helps us determine which coverage you qualify.
Guaranteed Coverage
All applicants are guaranteed to be accepted for permanent coverage of up to $50,000.00 ($25,000 for insured aged over 50 and $10,000 for children under age 18).
A guaranteed coverage, no medical life insurance is designed for applicants with very serious medical conditions, when applying for a no medical exam life insurance coverage and you feel that you may be declined due to a serious illness or you’ve been declined multiple times in the past; a guaranteed life insurance coverage will offer you the basic life insurance coverage that you need.
An important note that you have to take into consideration about guaranteed issue policies is that the death benefit is limited to a return of premiums if death occurs by other than accidental means in the first two years. The full coverage amount is payable if death occurs after two years or if death is accidental.
Deferred Coverage
A deferred no-medical life insurance coverage is designed for applicants who are hard to insure, has previously been declined, and has serious medical conditions such as:
- Heart condition
- Cancer
- Diabetes
As mentioned above, the deferred life insurance coverage will cover applicants with serious medical conditions, and even if they were previously declined by regular carriers for a maximum amount of $100,000.00.
As the name implies, and similar to the guaranteed issue, there is a deferral period for the full coverage to kick-in in this no-medical exam coverage tier; the death benefit is limited to return of premiums plus 3% simple interest if death occurs by other than accidental means in the first two years. The full coverage amount is payable if death occurs after two years or if death is accidental.
Semi-Deferred Coverage
Semi-deferred no medical life insurance is designed for applicants with less serious health conditions who may still have experienced challenges in getting approved by regular insurance carriers.
This plan opens up a higher coverage of up to $350,000.00 and has a more advantageous deferral period to clients. In a semi-deferred plan, 50% of the coverage amount is paid out to the beneficiaries if non-accidental death occurs in the second year of the policy. If death occurs in the first year and is due to non-accidental means, then the death benefit is limited to a return of premiums paid plus 3% simple interest. The full coverage amount is payable if death occurs after two years or death is accidental.
Immediate Coverage
If you are in relatively good health, you may qualify for an immediate coverage no medical life insurance plan. These kinds of no medical insurance policies offer immediate permanent coverage to applicants who are in relatively good health but who may have been declined or will be declined by regular life insurance carriers due to lifestyle.
The benefit amount for immediate coverage, simplified issue life insurance can be up to $500,000.00 for applicants between 18 to 60 years old; coverage is reduced to $350,000.00 to applicants between 61 and 80 years of age.
These types of policies are available as a whole life and T-100 coverage.
Preferred Rating Life Insurance
Applicants with great health, who do not engage in dangerous activities, who want coverage fast, and who does not want to deal with the hustle of regular insurance underwriting, may be able to qualify for a preferred rating no medical insurance policy.
In a preferred rating no medical exam life insurance, you may implement up to $1,000,000.00 worth of whole life insurance if you’re under the age of 70, $500,000.00 max if you’re between 71 and 80 years old.
On a Term 100 life insurance, coverages are available up to $1,000,000.00 for ages up to 80 years old.
Elite Rating Life Insurance
Is a step-up from the preferred rating tier, applicants who are in very good health and have no lifestyle issues (i.e. engaging in dangerous activities like racing, sky-diving, etc.) may qualify for an elite rating no medical life insurance policy.
This qualifies an applicant to the best rate possible in a no-medical life insurance policy, one thing to keep in mind is that this tier is an optional tier from the preferred rating class as this requires full underwriting.
If you don’t want to go through full medical underwriting, you can get the preferred rating tier instead of the elite tier.
No Medical Life Insurance Quotes
Now that you understand how a no-medical or simplified issue life insurance works, you know that simplified issue life insurance is a great life insurance option for applicants who are looking for a quick and easy underwriting process, those with a complicated medical history, or who have pre-existing medical conditions.
Getting a no-medical life insurance quote isn’t as straight-forward as regularly-underwritten life insurance policies.
To get an accurate quote, it’s important to determine first the right tier that you qualify for. Simply launching a no medical life insurance quoting software, may disappoint you as you may be quoting for a tier that you don’t qualify for, which in effect may give you a lower quote than the actual contribution for the plan that you qualify for.
As mentioned, everyone is automatically accepted in the guaranteed issue no medical life insurance tier but you may qualify for better rates if you’re in a relatively good health condition. The key here is getting through the insurer’s eligibility questionnaires first to make sure that you’re getting the right quote for the tier or class that you qualify for.