How Can Insurers Sell Guaranteed Issue Life?

Written By: Mark Bradshaw on September 5, 2010 No Comment

Have you ever watched your TV set or surfed around the internet? Sure you have! Have you seen ads for guaranteed issue life insurance that promises not to turn anybody down? I would be that you have seen those ads while you were watching TV or on the net. But have you ever wondered if those ads were true or to good to be true?

A life insurance company takes a risk every time they issue a policy. But if they offer to cover everybody, without doing any health underwriting, that seems like it would be bad business. At first glance, it seems like they would go broke very fast. But since few insurers are giong broke, they must have a way to profit from this generous offer.

The first thing to understand is that these policies are usually pretty small. They may max out at ten or twenty thousand dollars. In the insurance world, that is considered a small policy. So they are not making lots of million dollar payments on policies like this.

But they are not even taking a big risk with a few thousand dollars. One other thing that policies like this will probably have is a waiting period. That time period may be two or three years. If the insured person passes away before this period ends, their family will not be able to collect the whole death benefit.

This does not mean that these policies are useless. Many insurers offer to refund premiums if the insured person does not survive the waiting period. Others may pay out a fraction of the death benefit. Some policices may have a combination of payouts, depending upon how long the insured person does live.

Here is an example of how a graded death benefit may work. Keep in mind that this is an example. It is not intended to explain any particular policy. Let us say the policy will return premiums, with interest, if the insured individual passes away in the first year. It will pay a quarter of the death benefit if the person passes away in the second 12 months. For the third period, it way pay half the premum. After 36 months have elapsed, the family is entitled to the whole death benefit.

In order to get the best life insurance policy for you, if it is guaranteed issue or not, it is important to shop around for the best rates and deals.

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