I was Declined. Now what?

All right. Good people, life insurance enthusiasts everywhere, you know this is my favorite topic. We’re talking today about life insurance. My name is Matthew. I’m the founder and owner of Life Matters, and I’m here to talk about what happens when you get declined for a life insurance application. So nobody likes to get turned down, right? We got that probably back from when we’re kids and we’re the last ones on the playground picked for kickball. I don’t know anything about how that feels. But we don’t like the rejection, generally speaking, right? We apply for something, we want to get it. And it’s no fun when you get declined. So if and when you get declined, number one, hopefully you’ve got a good agent who will go to bat for you.

So if you have a good agent who will go to bat for you. If you don’t go get one. Fire your agent, find one who will go to bat for you. If you have one that’ll go to bat for you, there’s going to be some work that has to be done. Number one, we got to find out why you got declined specifically. A lot of the insurance carriers don’t share that information with agents. I promise you, it would make my job a whole lot easier if they did. Some of them do, but most of them don’t. And there are HIPAA laws that prevent them from doing so. So it’s not the carrier’s fault per se, but it would make our jobs a lot easier. So with that information, with the right agent, you can go to other carriers potentially and find coverage. Carriers have slightly different underwriting requirements for different health conditions.

Is Whole Life Better?

So if you get turned down with one carrier, there might be another carrier completely willing to take your case. The right agent can shop around, do some things that are called risk assessments, which are conversations with underwriters, just to see if we can get your case approved somewhere else tentatively, and then go ahead and file the application and see if we can get you approved for sure, permanently. So that’s the first thing. The second thing is if it’s an MIB or a prescription or Milliman prescription history check problem, then we have to do some investigating. Sometimes there’s mistakes that show up on there. Sometimes we have to do some corrections. Sometimes we have to get authenticity through the doctor’s office, get a doctor’s note that verifies something in one of your answers.

So don’t be dismayed. Don’t lose hope if you don’t get approved right away. That just means we got to roll up our sleeves and work a little harder and find the right carrier to get you approved. So the price may change. It may end up being a little bit more. There might be some more restrictions. You might have to back off the death benefit to still make it work on your budget. Those are all things that we can figure out as long as you’re willing to stay in the fight with your agent long enough to find the right solution that’s out there for you. So if you’ve been declined recently, get on the phone with your agent and get to work and find a solution. If that’s not something that looks too appealing to you for whatever reason, get on my calendar, let’s you and I chat, and I’ll go to work for you and we’ll see if we can find a solution that’s out there. Thanks. I hope this has been helpful. And never forget how much your life matters.