Transcript
Hi this is Liran Hirschkorn from chooseterm.com and today i want to talk to
you about commercials that you see for life insurance and if you've
recently been watching TV you may have seen Met Life has commercials for 14
dollars a month for life insurance. They have the same ads if you Google
life insurance rates you may see on the right hand side, some adds for Met
Life $14 a month life insurance, but if you watch those ads closely then
you'll see that in small print on their TV commercial it says for a healthy
30 year old woman for $250,000 of coverage. So somebody who is 30 years
old and getting a 10 year term policy for 250,000 dollars at the best
possible rates out there they have no health conditions and they're super
healthy yes they can get insurance for $14 a month, but I believe that the
commercial is misleading because it gets people to think "wow i can get
life insurance at $14 a month."
Most people applying for insurance are not exactly 30 years old. They're
not in perfect health per say and they may not be looking for 250,000
dollars in coverage. So what i want to do is talk to you a little bit
about what new life insurance companies look for in terms of figuring out
how to price you and how to get your rate. So basically life insurance
companies look for some specific things in terms of figuring out how to
price you. They look at your age. They look at your current height and
weight. There are several different categories you might fit in based on
your height and weight. Which will result in your BMI index. Life
insurance companies look at whether you are a tobacco user or not a tobacco
user.
They also look at your family history so perhaps you have a parent or
siblings that's had cancer, heart disease, diabetes, stroke. Especially if
that's under the age of 60 that might affect your health rating. Also
especially if it is a heredity type of health condition that also might
affect your health rating. Obviously they look at your health conditions
so they look at things like your blood pressure, cholesterol, they look at,
again, your height and weight and any health conditions that you have.
Things like asthma, diabetes, or more serious things can result in a higher
rating. So once insurance companies do a medical exam and they look at
your medical history they come back and they give you a health rating.
That health rating basically could be anywhere from preferred plus which is
the best health rating all the way to 14 different categories.
The four major categories are preferred plus for non tobacco users at
least, preferred plus, preferred, standard plus, and standard. Those are
the four typical categories that people without preexisting conditions get
for nonsmokers. Smokers can get preferred tobacco or standard tobacco.
Below those ratings if you have a preexisting health condition like
diabetes or you may have had cancer within the last 5 years or heart
disease or you have some kind of condition then you're going to get a
substandard rating. Substandard ratings are ratings between 1 and 10 and
sometimes they're letters and those are ratings that increase the price of
your coverage based on your preexisting conditions. So starting from 1 all
the way up to 10 which would be the highest price you can get those kind of
ratings if you have a preexisting condition. So the point of this video is
to educate you on next time you see those kind of ads for 14 dollars a
month for life insurance, 15 dollars a month, or 10 dollars a month those
are really targeted at a specific person to get those rates.
Again, usually someone young, very healthy, and a small term amount of
coverage like a 10 year or term which is the shortest period of time and a
cheaper form of life insurance coverage. Most people don't necessarily
look for a 10 year term. Some people look for a 20 or 30 year term and
some people look for permanent coverage. So you really want to speak with
an experienced agent who can give you a quote that is more targeted for
you. At chooseterm.com this is what we help our clients do. I can figure out what a
quote is actually going to be for you and actually give you a realistic
number as opposed to having you think that you can get a life insurance
policy for $14 dollars a month. Well if you're 45 or 50 years old that is
very unlikely to be the case. If you are a 30 year old in perfect health
condition you're going to get a 250,000 dollar policy then yes you can
probably get that kind of pricing, but those ads to me are misleading. At
chooseterm.com we don't provide those kind of misleading quotes. So we
look forward to speaking with you. You can visit our website and fill out
our quote form or call us to get a customized quote specifically for you.
Thank you.
Author: Liran Hirschkorn